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My First Encounter with Corneliu Coposu
There is no reference in my Securitate file to the above episode, nor to that involving my contact with Corneliu Coposu who, after the 1989 revolution, became President of the National Peasant Party, although a report of my visit to him appears in Coposu’s own file. I had come to Bucharest that same August in 1986 with my two young children and deposited them with their grandparents while I pursued research into British contacts with Iuliu Maniu, the head of the National Peasant Party, during the Second World War. My Romanian friends told me that a key person to talk to on this subject was Corneliu Coposu, Maniu’s personal assistant. I was given his telephone number but warned, at the same time, that his house was under surveillance by the Securitate because the poker evenings that Coposu arranged with his septuagenarian friends were regarded as a cover for reviving the NPP. I telephoned Mr Coposu, explained briefly who I was, and we agreed a time when I should go to his house. He then warned me that visits to his home were monitored. Thanking him, I added that if he would be kind enough to receive me, then I was unconcerned as to what others might think. More
What Do People in Romania Think of Capitalism?
How do the Romanians feel about capitalism and the free market economy, and how do the attitudes in Romania compare to those in 33 other countries? This was the subject of a survey conducted between June 2021 and December 2022 in a total of 34 countries. The survey was conducted in the United States and in small, medium and large countries in Europe, South America, Asia and Africa. Representative samples of around 1,000 respondents were surveyed in each country.In Romania, Ipsos MORI surveyed a representative sample of 1,000 people from June 17 to 21, 2022. In total, 34.550 respondents took part in the survey. More
Natural Disasters as Economic and Political Weapons
Kurdistan, or the impossibility of its existence, represents a millennial problem in the heart of the Middle East, being moreover one of the most controversial and at the same time current dilemmas of modern history. The most recent materialization of this conflict is represented by the aftermath of the earthquakes in Turkey at the start of February, when the tragic natural catastrophe underscored the maintenance of the neglect of the Kurdish community by the Turkish state. The weaponization of the earthquake against the Kurds leads the ostracized community into leaving the Turkish territory, a goal that the Turkish state has had for hundreds of years. More so, this natural disaster is not the first one that the Erdogan-led Turkey has used against the Kurds, blaming the Kurdish party for the start of the 2021 wildfires. However, President Erdogan is not the first one to neglect the Kurdish provinces when they were hit by natural disasters, the earthquakes from 2003 and 1975 being prime examples of the matter. More
Eurostat: Young People Materially and Socially Deprived, Highest Proportion Recorded in Romania
In 2021, the EU Member States with the highest levels of young people (aged 15-29 years) at risk of poverty or social exclusion were Romania (36.1 %), Greece (35.4 %) and Bulgaria (31.8 %), while the lowest rates were found in Czechia (10.6 %), Slovenia (11.5 %) and Malta (14.0 %), according to Eurostat.The situation in our country was extremely bad for the 15 – 19 age group, where the percentage goes up to 44.7% (see Figure 1), well above Greece (36.3%) and Bulgaria (36.2%), and a little better for the 20 – 24 age group (33.5%, under Denmark 43.8%, Finland 35.4%, Greece 37.1% and Bulgaria 34.4% ) and the 25 – 29 age group (28.1%, under Greece 32.7%, Italy 31.9%, Denmark 30.2% and Spain 30.0%), in the European context. More
“Twin transitions” and (the Transformation of) Art
The future of what is currently happening in the European Union (although the process we are discussing is ultimately and inevitably global) constitutes the beginning of the “twin transitions” that may find us, decades from now, in the following scenario: we will start our day in a smart and clean house (energetically and aseptically), looking out the VR window that shows us the weather status up to the air quality level and indicates the optimal time to spend outside from a health care index perspective; we will have breakfast after seeing the sustainability score of the menu’s food, with delicacies, by the way, coming from high-tech farmers who take care of their crops by buttoning in the cloud, connected to Big Data, open source weather platforms, fine sensors, and autonomous tractors; we use the washing machine when the dynamic electricity tariff is in our favour, for we are brave prosumers and suppliers in the grid, thanks to strategically mounted solar panels on the roof; we go to work, not yet counting among the lucky digital nomads with flexible telework regime, 4/24, 4/7, waiting for some well-deserved e-leisure hours reserved, for example, for culture; we have the choice between immersing ourselves, through the AR headset, in the captivating Metaverse for a play (where, no, we will not be spectators, but we will play Horatio, in Hamlet, replying to the immortal Laurence Olivier’s avatar) or we can order a Cézanne exhibition at home, as in the old days, at the Tate Museum (projected 16K on the white and versatile walls of the 3D printed and luxuriously finished house by Obi-One, the painter robot of the 100th Romanian unicorn); nostalgic, tired of e-books, we take a book from the vintage memories shelf and sit under the retro-futuristic lamp, in which an old LED bulb from Electromagnetica stubbornly functional has fused with the glass recovered from our great-great-great-grandfather’s oil lamp, a hero at Mărășești WWI clash. Always and everywhere, the cultural-artistic experience integrates us (as well as distinguishes us) in/from the environment, together with our exosomatic extensions (of instrumental, technological nature). More
China as a Space Power
After the death of the famous admiral Zheng He, whose fleet had explored the Indian Ocean and even reached East Africa, the move of the empire’s capital to Beijing and the threat from the Mongols led to an inward reorientation of China, which completely withdrew funding for new naval expeditions and repressed contacts with the outside world, even with those visiting China from Java, Siam and other kingdoms.This decision had a powerful impact in history, because only 55 years after Zheng He’s seventh and final expedition, Bartolomeo Diaz’s compatriots, the Portuguese, sailed past the Cape of Good Hope and reached the Indian Ocean, bypassing Arab and Ottoman-controlled routes through North Africa and the Middle East. Eventually, European powers came to impose their will on China through military and economic force, embodied in the “unequal treaties” that still dominate Chinese perceptions of the “century of humiliation”. I believe that this is one of the explanations for China’s surge in space. From its first steps in this area, with the launch of the Dong Fang Gong 1 satellite onboard a Long March 1 rocket in 1970, the fifth country in the world to launch a satellite, to Yang Liwei’s flight in 2003, by which China became the third country to send people into space through its own strength, the level of resources devoted to space has been steadily increasing. Now, China has developed an ambitious agenda to reach full parity with the US in space and become a global hub for space development that attracts other countries. More
Where To? The European Union between Brexit and the War in Ukraine
What has become of European integration? The present concerns regarding Russia’s aggression in Ukraine, a bloody war on the European Union’s Eastern borders, and transatlantic solidarity makes the question seem a bit irrelevant. Beneath the surface, however, the worries that Britain’s exit from the mostly Brussels-based organisation brought to the fore still linger. Is there any meaningful sense left to the buzzwords or has European integration become just another euphemism for piecemeal regional cooperation? More
Republicans and Support for Ukraine
Trump has been the most vocal of Republican critics of the Biden policy and has suggested that more money needs to be directed toward our domestic needs. DeSantis has also been moving in that direction and on 14 March, The New York Times reported that he had stated that defense of Ukraine was not a vital interest. The combined support within the Republic Party is a total of 75%. Establishment Republicans reject this position, but it could well have an impact on the attitudes of rank and file party members. More
Digitally United We Stand, Digitally Divided We Fall!
The European environment – business and wider society alike – is undergoing significant disruptions following the impact of digitalisation. Traditional value creation models for European businesses change. Value creation models are impacted by digital transformations – both if we talk about a “digital twin” (a virtual/digital control of physically running processes and physical resources) or about a full “digital from scratch”. New combinations of digital and physical resources (components) allow new, innovative, fully – or partially – digital products to be launched onto the markets. Thereupon, digital platform ecosystems (DPEs) and digital platform-based value creation models leave their marks on production, consumption, organization and organizations, or exchange. More
The Broken Avant-garde of Max Hermann Maxy
The exhibition currently displayed by the National Museum of Arts of Romania (MNAR) in honour of Max Hermann Maxy is both an artistic and a historical event. Despite its limitations and imperfections, “M. H. Maxy: From Avant-gardisme to Socialism” offers precious insight into one of the least known, but most noteworthy, avant-garde movements in interwar Europe: integralism. The chronological organisation offers the visitor, for the very first time, a panorama of the ambitious artist’s entire work, which includes the discredited propaganda works in the service of the Communist regime. Maxy, who not coincidentally is also the founder and first director of MNAR, is the first controversial Romanian avant-garde painter who receives this kind of official treatment, although some semi-private galleries cautiously started this effort to publicly rehabilitate and reassess notable artists associated with the communist regime, such as his friend the constructivist painter Hans or János Mattis-Teutsch, just a few years before. More
Romania, Third Among EU Economies Regarding Net Personal Transfers as Percentage of GDP and First in Nominal Terms
In 2021, the EU countries that generated surpluses of personal transfers, representing more than 1% of their respective gross domestic product (GDP), were Croatia (2.7% of GDP), Bulgaria (1.6%), Romania (1.5%) and Latvia (1.1%). In contrast, Cyprus (-0.9%), France and Spain (each -0.5%) generated the largest deficits of personal transfers vis-à-vis the rest of the world as a share of their respective GDP. In terms of personal transfers and compensation of employees related to economic result, our country is placed also third among EU member states, with a percentage of 3.2% of GDP, after Croatia (7.3% of GDP) and Latvia (3.3%) and above Luxemburg (2.7%), Bulgaria (2.4%), Belgium (2.3%), Slovakia (2.1%), Portugal and Hungary (both with 2%). More
Dead Men Tell Many Tales
It is worth noting that one of the most important issues the past three years have brought to the forefront is the fact that the EU’s unity and capacity to act coherently have been challenged both by the pandemic and by the ongoing war; to be more specific, the political, cultural and economic differences translate to divergent interests and stances which, at times, have undermined the EU’s ability to act concertedly, and we have witnessed matters of internal political opportunism bleeding into matters pertaining to European affairs. The pandemic highlighted how the differences between countries led to different effects of the pandemic and different approaches, while also dangerously increasing Euroscepticism. For example, the fact that, in France, far-right candidate Marine Le Pen, though losing to Emmanuel Macron, still garnered 42% of the votes while her party, the National Rally, managed to earn 89 seats in the legislative elections (about eleven times the number of seats it previously held) is quite telling. The war, on the other hand, despite rallying most of Europe against Russia’s invasion, still left a few significant country-sized chinks in its image of harmony and unity. More
