Rubrics » Bridging News
The Liquid Sun: Bridging Ideology with Infrastructure through the Siret-Bărăgan Project
No. 58, Mar.-Apr. 2026 In the sun-drenched landscape of the global south and Eastern Europe, a quiet revolution is taking place at the intersection of two ancient necessities: water and energy. The most striking laboratory for this transformation is the Siret-Bărăgan Canal – a massive, unfinished legacy of Romania’s socialist era that may finally find its purpose through the most modern of capitalist mechanisms. More
Beyond the Stats
No. 58, Mar.-Apr. 2026 At first glance, we might be tempted to think that the career of a two-time world champion is defined entirely by success and fulfilment. And, to some extent, that is true. Yet what remains far less visible is the effort behind the scenes. “Dan Carter. The Autobiography of an All Blacks Legend” (Headline Publishing, 2015) stands, above all, as a testimony to effort and resilience. More
Why We Don’t Have Memorable Characters Like Hercule Poirot?
No. 58, Mar.-Apr. 2026 “Hercule Poirot, a Belgian detective who became internationally famous, has died in England. His age was unknown. Mr. Poirot achieved fame as a private investigator after he retired as a member of the Belgian police force in 1904. His career, as chronicled in the novels of Dame Agatha Christie, his creator, was one of the most illustrious in fiction. At the end of his life, he was arthritic and had a bad heart. He was in a wheelchair often, and was carried from his bedroom to the public lounge at Styles Court, a nursing home in Essex, wearing a wig and false moustaches to mask the signs of age that offended his vanity. In his active days, he was always impeccably dressed. Mr. Poirot, who was just 5 feet 4 inches tall, went to England from Belgium during World War I as a refugee. He settled in a little town not far from Styles, then an elaborate country estate, where he took on his first private case.” More
Forecasts and Reality
No. 58, Mar.-Apr. 2026 Economic forecasts rarely materialize exactly as expected, as economic reality is highly complex and full of surprises. Macroeconomic models used to produce forecasts are simplified representations of the economic system; the data they rely on are not always available in a timely manner, and economic developments are often affected by unforeseen shocks. More
Romania, Second Lowest Level in the EU in Labour Costs Last Year
No. 58, Mar.-Apr. 2026 Romania remained at the second lowest level in the EU in terms of average hourly labour costs for 2025, according to data published by Eurostat. In a context marked by significant gaps between EU countries, the lowest hourly labour costs were recorded in Bulgaria (€12), Romania (€13.6, up from €12.5 in 2024), and Hungary (€15.2), while the highest were observed in Luxembourg (€56.8), Denmark (€51.7), and the Netherlands (€47.9). More
Connecting Continents: Intersecting European and Asian Perspectives
No. 58, Mar.-Apr. 2026 The European Institute of Romania (EIR) has published the working paper titled The EU and Asian States: Towards sustainable cooperation. Opportunities for Romania. Drawing on the deepening of regional integration trends – with the European Union representing the most advanced model – and the intensification of overlapping political, economic, and social challenges, this work brings together contributions from renowned international experts from 14 European and Asian states: Bulgaria, Hungary, France, Greece, Poland, Romania, and Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Bangladesh, China, India, Japan, Mongolia, and Pakistan. More
Governance and Political Stability: Reform, Transparency, and the Populist Challenge
No. 58, Mar.-Apr. 2026 Governance remains the foundation of Romania’s long-term stability, shaping state capacity, public trust, and the credibility of reforms tied to EU and OECD integration. Over the past decade, Romania has made notable progress in judicial consolidation and administrative digitalisation, yet persistent vulnerabilities continue to weaken institutional performance. Fragmented public administration, frequent ministerial turnover, politicised appointments, and inconsistent policy continuity undermine reform momentum. Rising populist sentiment, low trust in political institutions, and intensifying electoral volatility add extra layers of uncertainty. Drawing on European Commission Rule of Law Reports, Eurobarometer trends, OECD accession benchmarks, and Transparency International indicators, this article examines Romania’s governance trajectory, identifies sources of institutional drift, and outlines strategic pathways for strengthening democratic resilience. More
The “Movements of the Earth” and the “Phases of the Moon”
No. 58, Mar.-Apr. 2026 There is, in the way humanity names its grand projects, a form of allegorical memory that refuses to fade. The Apollo program was not merely a technological demonstration; it was an invocation of order, light, and reason amid the epic tensions of the Cold War. Today, Artemis brings onto the stage not another god, but a sister – a possible correction to “solarian” excesses. Artemis embodies rhythm, cyclicality, a return that is less triumphalist and more contemplative. NASA itself speaks, in recent communications, of “sustainable exploration,” suggesting that the epic is no longer about “reaching” the Moon, but about “settling” upon it. Myth does not disappear, it refines itself: from heroic gesture to ecosystemic one. In this sense, naming no longer legitimizes ambition alone, but responsibility as well – an ethics of human presence beyond Earth, in which mythological symbolism functions as a cultural compass within an increasingly “abstractly-technological” universe. More
The Hungarian Elections: The Prodigal Son Gets the Fatted Calf
No. 58, Mar.-Apr. 2026 On April 12, 2026, Péter Magyar and his Tisza party rewrote history. With nearly 80 percent turnout, Tisza secured 138 seats in the 199-seat Hungarian parliament on 53.6 percent of the vote, handing Viktor Orbán his first electoral defeat since 2006 and ending sixteen years of Fidesz rule. The celebrations along the Danube were genuine. They were also, in some important respects, premature. More
Shifting from Theories Made to Explain Humans to Humans “Made” to Explain Theories
No. 58, Mar.-Apr. 2026 In Friedrich Hayek’s words, “the curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design”. The shortsighted tendency to reduce higher-order interdependencies to linear relationships that miss out on essential details is conveyed by Robert Lucas’ “critique”. Phillips, the creator of the namesake “curve”, proved that until the ’50s, high levels of inflation were linked to a low unemployment rate. The statistical methods used then depicted the connection as strong and stable. In the early ’70s, adherents of the Keynesian school of thought, pervading both academic circles and the overall establishment, believed that pursuing inflationary policy would raise employment and generate just enough growth to escape the economic deadlock of those times. Acting on these predictions, the Federal Reserve issued currency to unprecedented levels, while the government patched up the upsurging deficit through debt. More
What Makes a Good Life: The State, God, or Money? (Part I)
No. 58, Mar.-Apr. 2026 What makes a good life – state institutions, religion, or money? In this first part, I will trace the deep historical entanglement between political power and religious authority, from Saint Augustine to Karl Marx and Max Weber, setting the stage for a contemporary reflection continued in Part II. More
Central Coercive Diplomacy in the Gulf
No. 58, Mar.-Apr. 2026 In Vienna, the room is familiar: delegates, translators, carefully calibrated phrases. But the subject is anything but routine. As news of strikes and counter‑strikes ripples across screens, the nuclear file – the one issue that can turn a regional war into a global panic – returns to the centre of the agenda. The head of the world’s nuclear watchdog warns that military action around nuclear facilities is uniquely dangerous. Outside the conference hall, markets price war risk, shipping companies reroute, and Gulf capitals measure how quickly a confrontation they did not choose could move onto their territory. More
