Rubrics » Bridging News
France and Kazakhstan: A Strengthened Strategic Partnership
No. 60, Jul.-Aug. 2026 In 2008, France and Kazakhstan signed a strategic partnership, which the two countries wanted to strengthen, in light of the visit of the President of Kazakhstan, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, to France last November. More
Liberty Without Asking for Permission
No. 60, Jul.-Aug. 2026 My soon-to-be-published book, "Government by Permission", grew out of the research I began in graduate school in 1970 for a master’s thesis on the impact of modern science and technology on society. It subsequently developed into a long-term project which I have pursued in many directions and across multiple disciplines and which carried over – interchangeably – into a career of research, lecturing, and writing. To illustrate the continuity, this article is largely composed of passages drawn from my previous work. More
On Peaches, Coconuts and Leadership
No. 60, Jul.-Aug. 2026 Global careers are often described in terms of positions, promotions and achievements. Far less attention is paid to the personal transformation that accompanies them. This conversation with Roxana Tănase is less about career milestones than about curiosity, cultural intelligence, leadership, and the willingness to keep learning. More
The False Promise of Romania’s “New” Economic Model
No. 60, Jul.-Aug. 2026 To halt the recession, correct macroeconomic imbalances, and return the economy to a “normal” state, a number of Romanian analysts, economists, and politicians advocate replacing the current economic model – based largely on consumption, financed in part through public borrowing – with one centred on investment, reindustrialisation, advanced technologies, and wage growth aligned with productivity. More
Why Goethe Should Have Won the Nobel Prize in Economics
No. 60, Jul.-Aug. 2026 A long-standing prejudice in modern and contemporary thought holds – sometimes explicitly, sometimes implicitly – that economics is one thing, while life, society, culture and everything else are quite another. In other words, to look at human existence through an economic lens is to confine it to measurable, arithmetic, “accounting” aspects that supposedly reveal nothing but the “greed” that drives people toward “profit.” More
Romania, Second-Lowest Price Level in the EU in 2025
No. 60, Jul.-Aug. 2026 Romania had the second-lowest price level in the EU in 2025, with an index of 65.1% relative to the European average. Bulgaria ranked first, with an index of 62.5%, while Poland (73.3%), Hungary (77.5%), Croatia (78.4%), Lithuania (82.8%), Latvia (83.2%), and Slovakia (85.2%) were all above Romania. More
The Unsinkable Lusitania
No. 60, Jul.-Aug. 2026 The Lusitania sank in less than twenty minutes. The Lusitania that truly mattered never did. Most people remember Lusitania as the British ocean liner torpedoed by a German U-boat in 1915, a tragedy that helped reshape the course of the First World War. Long before it was the name of a ship, however, Lusitania was the name of a land – a civilization whose greatest voyages began not on the ocean, but in the mind. More
The Factory, the Office and the West: Reading the Sino-Indian Rivalry Back to Economic Reality
No. 60, Jul.-Aug. 2026 This essay looks again at the Chinese and Indian “economic miracles”, not as events that cannot be explained, but as the results of institutional reform. It then asks where the rivalry between the two Asian giants is being fought today. The main argument is that the United States and the European Union are not the main actors in this story, but external arenas in which the competition between China and India is expressed and measured. By looking at the American side (tariffs and “de-risking”) and the European side (regulation, connectivity and trade agreements), the essay shows how China and India turn Western policy into strategic decisions aimed, in the end, at each other. The conclusion is that globalisation today has not removed the rivalry between states, but only moved it to a new place and that the result will depend on the quality of institutions rather than on the idea of a “miracle”. More
Romania 2030: Integration, Resilience, and Reform Momentum
No. 60, Jul.-Aug. 2026 Romania approaches 2030 at a moment when fiscal consolidation, pension sustainability, energy transition, governance reform, security pressures, and EU‑funding absorption increasingly converge into a single strategic challenge. This article synthesises insights from the previous six parts of the series to outline how Romania’s structural vulnerabilities – ranging from demographic decline to administrative fragmentation – interact with its substantial advantages in energy, NATO positioning, and European integration. The central argument is that Romania’s trajectory will depend less on isolated policy interventions and more on coherent, sequenced, and sustained reforms capable of strengthening resilience and long‑term competitiveness. The 2030 horizon presents risks, but also an exceptional window for transformation anchored in EU, NATO, and OECD frameworks. More
The Concert of Terra: History Does Not Repeat Itself, but It Rhymes
No. 59, May-Jun. 2026 In May 2026, Beijing held two summits with Washington and Moscow six days apart, in this order and not by chance: Donald Trump on May 14 and Vladimir Putin on May 20. The immediate comments focused, predictably, on trade deals, gas pipelines and the rhetoric of summit diplomacy. This is the level at which the 24-hour media cycle operates. But there is a deeper level to these visits, which does not appear in the joint communiqués and which deserves patient analysis: Beijing did not react to world events, but orchestrated a deliberate sequence through which it positioned itself as the indispensable pivot of a multipolar system in search of stabilization. More
Making Sense of Speed and Turmoil in the Age of AI – China, the Middle East and the Rest
No. 59, May-Jun. 2026 At the beginning of May I was invited to participate in an international conference in Budapest jointly organized by the Center for International Economy at Mathias Corvinus Collegium (MCC) and the China-CEE Institute. The theme of the conference was “Geopolitical Stress Test: The Middle East Crisis and Europe’s China Dilemma”. It was a good opportunity to catch up with researchers that I have met before, to revisit the MCC Campus and to prepare for an exchange of ideas on one of the hottest topics of today’s political scene. More
Why Do We Love Football?
No. 59, May-Jun. 2026 Football (or soccer, as it is called in English-speaking ex-colonial zones; the term “soccer” was coined by English university students, deriving from “Association (Football)”, and was intended to distinguish the code of 11’s football from that of 15’s football, or rugby, or “rugger”) is almost omnipresent on the planet. This sport is a magnet for the masses, and its popularity constantly increases, according to statistics and worldwide reach. For sure, there are so many other sports games that are also very attractive, but somehow football stands out at the top of the list. However, did you ever wonder why this phenomenon is happening? More
