Rubrics » Bridging News
Romania, Least Money for Health Among EU Member States
No. 57, Jan.-Feb. 2026 Romania ranked second to last among EU member states in terms of the percentage of GDP allocated to health, according to data published by Eurostat. With a value of only 5.71%, Romania edged out Luxembourg (5.67%) and placed below Hungary (6.37%), Ireland (6.58%), Poland (7.14%) or Croatia (7.15%). More
Cigarettes After War – Where Symbolism Matches Consumption
No. 57, Jan.-Feb. 2026 Humanity has consumed tobacco since the dawn of times, but it took two cataclysmic global conflicts to elevate the cigarette into a defining symbol of modern life. What began as a marginal indulgence soon became both a weapon of comfort and a vehicle of mass addiction. So, beware, reading might cause dependence! More
Pension Reform and OECD Accession: Sustainability vs. Social Pressure
No. 57, Jan.-Feb. 2026 Romania’s pension system sits at the intersection of fiscal strain and social obligation. While OECD accession demands transparent, actuarially balanced reforms, domestic politics elevate short-term adequacy over long-term sustainability. Pension spending already exceeds 9% of GDP and is projected to reach 12% by 2035, driven by demographic ageing and indexation pressures. This article analyses Romania’s three-pillar structure, assesses the 2024 recalculation law’s fiscal impact, and compares sustainability benchmarks under OECD and EU standards. Using data from Eurostat, CNPP, the European Commission Ageing Report 2024, and Eurobarometer 103 (Spring 2025), it argues that sequenced, credible reform can reconcile fiscal prudence with social fairness. More
Alpha Dogs on the Catwalk
No. 57, Jan.-Feb. 2026 Davosian Man. These words do not express a consecrated anthropological concept; rather, it is an exploration. We are not speaking of a missing link from some prehistorical past, but rather of a relic of the future. This Man legitimizes himself, in a burst of ad hoc anthropology, as a resident of a suite of concentric worlds: the world of those who attend the plenipotentiary and masterminded environment of the World Economic Forum; then the world of those concerned with the purposes and mechanisms of the globe, including those situated at a greater distance than those who pay the minimum USD 25,000 “socializing fee” to attend the respectable conclave; finally, the whole world, which is ever born from the interplay of representations and resolutions produced by those who make the world revolve around their own axes. In this sense, we are all “Davosians,” even if we do not chat directly with the trendsetters but only with their ideas or, more passively, submit ourselves to them. More
The End of the Long 20th Century
No. 57, Jan.-Feb. 2026 Historian Eric Hobsbawm borrowed from the Soviet writer Ilya Ehrenburg the concept of the long 19th century, a 125-year period from the French Revolution in 1789 to the First World War in 1914. The period is marked by the Enlightenment, the rise of national movements, and the rise of European empires amid the Industrial Revolution. I would suggest that 2025 or perhaps 2022 was the end of a long 20th century, marked by ideological conflicts between states, bipolarity, and eventual American hegemony, and now the end of the postwar order. Perhaps future historians will place this end during the financial crisis of 2008, or at the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, a member of the UN Security Council, and the strong economic response of the West, which shook global financial and energy flows. Or perhaps Trump’s first or second term, with his iconoclasm towards the traditional priorities and instruments of institutional American power in the world, will be declared the beginning of a new era. What is certain is that we are witnessing the gradual return of an anarchic global system, increasingly focused on unilateral actions by powerful states and in which the completion of secular trends in the fiscal, technological and investment fields is rewriting the map of power on the world map. More
Has John Smith “Crafted” the Industrial Revolution? The Hidden Connection between Family Names and Economic Growth
No. 57, Jan.-Feb. 2026 The Industrial Revolution unambiguously came about in the 18th century. Nevertheless, those who set the scene for this radical twist in economic thinking and industrial capacity were a contingent of artisans, labourers, merchants, lenders and workshop owners. This composite class, predominantly living in the vicinity of towns and cities, gradually thickened for centuries, before achieving critical mass. In countries most prosperous nowadays, this up-and-coming class evolved either by organic means, seemingly through a background process, or was deliberately nurtured by rulers who acknowledged the creative role this group played. It is only natural that people hailing from developing economies, as Romanians do, ponder the question: did the lack of such a pre-modern proto-capitalist elite in some places lead to the current economic divide between nations? More
Rock of Ages: Gibraltar in the UK
No. 57, Jan.-Feb. 2026 Gibraltar is a rocky promontory located at the southern tip of the Iberian Peninsula, territorially a British Overseas Territory under British sovereignty since 1713. Sovereignty was ceded to the United Kingdom by Spain in the Treaty of Utrecht of 1713, although Spain argues that the Treaty transferred only the city, the castle, the port, and the fortifications, not the surrounding isthmus. Since then, Gibraltar has remained under British administration, maintaining border tensions with Spain. During the Franco period (1969-1985), the border fence was completely closed, isolating the Rock; it was not reopened until 1985, just one year before Spain’s accession to the EEC. More
Too Small to Matter, Too Rich to Ignore: An Unopinionated View on Monaco
No. 57, Jan.-Feb. 2026 What’s approximately two square kilometres in surface area, has its latitude sitting between the 43rd and the 44th parallels north, and boasts one impressive collection of “liquid”? You would not be wrong in inferring that the answer might be one-thirty-thousandth of Lake Michigan. But since today we are not here to discuss Great Lakes, but the small miracle that is Monaco, the comparison is less absurd than it first appears. In all seriousness, for what Monaco lacks in freshwater, it more than compensates in liquidity. Capital, rather than geography, defines its depth. Money flows where territory ends; influence accumulates where size should impose limits. It has it all: wealth, speed, spectacle; races that turn streets into circuits, events that compress global attention into a few luminous days, and a concentration of capital that seems almost gravitational. More
2026 Begins with a Lag
No. 57, Jan.-Feb. 2026 This is not an illusion; it pertains to the mechanisms of the economy. The effects of political and fiscal decisions do not play out instantaneously. A significant share of the measures adopted in 2025 lead to a tighter economic framework, raise costs, compress margins, and deepen uncertainty. But their real effects have not yet fully manifested into the economy. They are still working their way through the system. This is because they are not transmitted directly; instead, they are filtered through people’s expectations. And people, more often than not, do not react immediately. Decisions are not made at the moment when the impulse is released, but rather later, when the signal has settled and caution turns into behaviour. More
Bulgaria Adopted the Euro, Romania Needs It Too
No. 57, Jan.-Feb. 2026 Bulgaria adopted the European currency on January 1, 2026. Although it took place overnight, this historic event is the culmination of a long process of assimilation of the elements of European civilization. In the monetary field, this process began back in 1881, when the Autonomous Principality of Bulgaria established the bimetallic monetary system (gold, silver), which existed at that time in the “Latin Monetary Union” (France, Belgium, Italy, Switzerland and Luxembourg). The national currency was called “leva”, which means “lion” in Bulgarian and comes, like the name of the Romanian currency – “leu” –, from the Dutch thalers (leeuwendaalder), which circulated in Eastern Europe in the 17th–18th centuries. The first Bulgarian national currency had a nominal value equal to that of the French franc, like the currencies of all other countries that adopted the Latin monetary system. More
Romania, Lowest Share of Young People Work and Study at the Same Time among EU Member States
No. 57, Jan.-Feb. 2026 In 2024, Romania had lowest share of young people work and study at the same time among EU member states, according to a study published by Eurostat. With a ratio of only 2.4%, Romania was placed significantly under Greece (6.0%) and Croatia (6.4%) and far from the European average of 25,4%. More
From Rhine to Ruin: The Dry Ages of Europe
No. 57, Jan.-Feb. 2026 Europe’s driest periods in over 5 centuries rampage through the continent, with experts warning that even worse is in sight. This prompts concerns regarding water security and looming shortages, as many sources are depleting or externally dependent. More
