
An interview with the political scientist from the University of Bucharest about the first two months of the Cîţu government, its policies and the draft budget, and its intentions to restart anti-corruption
Vladimir Mitev
This article was published on 20 February 2021 at the Bulgarian section of the site “The Barricade”.
In Romania, social tensions are rising after the centre-right government of Florin Cîţu began cutting social benefits. Trade unions of health workers, public sector workers, police and other professions have been protesting for more than a month in various forms against Cîţu’s cabinet efforts to cut some of the gains made during the Social Democratic rule (which ended in 2019). The news from the middle of February is that Romania’s Social and Economic Council (which includes employers, trade unions and NGO members) has given a negative opinion on the country’s draft budget. On February 20, 2021 (Saturday), the Students’ Union protested against the abolition of free travel cards for students on Romanian state railways.
Last week, the government also submitted to parliament a bill to remove the special section for investigating violations of the judiciary, which has served as a brake on anti-corruption activities since its golden days, when the anti-corruption prosecutor’s office (the DNA) was headed by Laura Köveşi. The special section was set up while Romanian politics was dominated by Liviu Dragnea, an influential baron of the Social Democratic Party, whose desire to redefine Romania’s fight against corruption led to protests by hundreds of thousands of middle-class and corporate Romanians in 2017-2018. Immediately after the European elections in May 2019, Liviu Dragnea went to prison, and Romanian politics has since gradually moved under the domination of right-wing forces.
To learn more about the changes that the Cîţu government has brought to Romania since its formation in December 2020, we contacted political scientist Aurelian Giugăl.
Continue reading