Rubrics » Bridging News
American Foreign Policy toward Eastern Europe
In the election for the American President in 2024, foreign policy and national security in America will become a political football in the wake of President Biden’s bungling of American policy toward Russia. Much of this is self-inflicted due to the Democrat Party's and “Progressive’s” attack on fossil fuels and Europe’s reliance on Russian oil. More
We Still Have Paris!
The Germans occupied Paris on June 14th, 1940 without a fight. The event came one month after the Germans entered France and just a few months after the war started. Everyone expected France to intervene against Hitler’s attack on Poland on September 1st, 1939. But the France of the Right was admiring his regime and even the France of the Left was not substantially against it and was also against war and in favour of pacifism, especially after the huge losses from World War I. France made no moves. Moreover, Germany found an open city in Paris and an entire nation believing in Hitler’s victories everywhere. France was divided in two after the occupation: the North, including Paris and the entire west coast, was under German occupation; the Southern half was controlled by a newly formed government with Vichy as its capital, being in fact just a puppet state under the same authority. More
The Highest Proportion of Young People Who Were Severely Materially and Socially Deprived, Recorded in Romania
Among the EU Member States in 2020, the highest proportion of young people who were severely materially and socially deprived in 2020 was recorded in Romania (24%), followed by Bulgaria (21%) and Greece (16%). On the other hand, the proportion was less than 3% in 11 of the 26 Member States with available data: Luxembourg, Croatia, Estonia, Finland, Slovenia, Poland, Netherlands, Czechia, Cyprus, Sweden and Austria. More
A Possible Relationship Between the Inclusive Nature of the Modern Labour Market and Technological Progress
The article aims to bring to the attention or debate a possible relationship between the inclusive nature of the modern labour market and technological progress. From this relationship, labour market policy options arise that would favour inclusion through the use of technology in the current context. There are a variety of definitions, approaches and methodologies for measuring the inclusive, easily accessible labour market thanks to the internet (coming from EU, OECD, ILO, etc). Because to this volume of official information we may add the specialized literature of experts and researchers in the field, each and every one striving to fully capture the concept, this brief article tries its own answer to the following two questions: More
The Coronavirus Epidemic in Romania: A Government Failure All-Along (II)
When vaccination began simultaneously in all 27 EU states, in late December 2020, Romania reported for a short while some of the highest figures in the bloc, but it quickly became the second least vaccinated member country. It is now customary to attribute this dismal performance to rampant anti-vaccine sentiment among the Romanian population, even though some survey evidence pointed to more pronounced vaccine skepticism and vaccine hesitancy in Western countries such as France in particular[1]. On closer inspection, however, the finger pointed at anti-vaccine ideas and groups by high government officials in Romania constituted – without denying in the least the deleterious effects of anti-vaccination propaganda and activism – more of an abdication from responsibility which obscures the serious blunders of the government itself in vaccination matters. This was particularly the situation with the much-publicized case of some anti-vaccine Christian Orthodox clergy. For 30 years, many Liberals in the country decried the absence of a government-independent Church, and one was to believe that it emerged all of sudden in the midst of the pandemic! In the end, it was not the spread of anti-vaccine ideas which determined the vaccination rate in a country, but the actions or non-actions of public authorities. More
A Far-Reaching Book
Erudition and research stand to gain from the publishing of this outstanding two-volume study. Sailing against the winds, three scholars from Iași set out to write not just a mere scientific paper – to keep up with the times – but a book. And it turned out to be an excellent book, meeting the quality standards that a reputable publishing house like Palgrave requires. More
The Coronavirus Epidemic in Romania: A Government Failure All-Along (I)
More than two years after the start of the coronavirus epidemic, the real magnitude of the disaster it has wrought in Romania is plain for everyone to see. Although it entered into lockdown as one of the least affected countries, at least according to official statistics, in March 2020, it currently occupies a hard to believe 9th place worldwide in terms of coronavirus deaths per one million inhabitants, one notch above Brazil whose epidemic disaster has received more attention in the world’s media[1]. Furthermore, commonplace stories about rampant vaccine skepticism, anti-scientific thinking and bigotry among the Romanian population obscure the fundamental cause of the catastrophe: a failed government run by even more failed politicians. More
Canvassing the Freedom of a Nation
Among the four paintings created by John Trumbull that adorn the walls of the Capitol Rotunda to commemorate the greatest events of the American Revolution, one in particular makes reference to a salient part of the history of the United States, if not even the history of the world. For it depicts the moment on 28th of June, 1776, when the first draft of the Declaration of Independence was submitted for consideration at the Second Continental Congress which was held in the Pennsylvania State House, now the Independence Hall, in Philadelphia. The painting from the Capitol Rotunda was commissioned by the US Congress in 1817 and represents an enlarged version of the original painting the artist started to create back in 1786. Trumbull’s work illustrates 47 delegates, having in the foreground the five members of the committee in charge of drafting the document with Thomas Jefferson, its main author, handing in the first draft to John Hancock, president of the Congress (Architect of Capitol, n.d.). To be fair, if one would judge John Trumbull’s creation for its historical accuracy, then the essence of the painting would be lost in vain. Right from the very beginning, his intention was not to offer an accurate representation of the events from June, 1776, but to immortalize a moment with implications of great importance in the birth of the United States, as legacy for next generations, and to preserve the authentic likenesses of the extraordinary individuals to whom the United States owes “the memorable act and all its glorious consequences” (Trumbull, 1817 cited in Hazleton, 1907), while making sure to include all five members of the committee submitting the draft, rather than Thomas Jefferson alone like in reality (Yale University Art Gallery, n.d.). More
Did the Pandemic Reverse Pasokification?
Most of us probably do not remember the Greek political former hegemon PASOK. Instead, some of us may be inclined to skip over the letter “S” and think of another kind of Greek hegemon, the football team PAOK. However, PASOK (Panhellenic Socialist Movement) made its way in the history books by dominating (in an ideological sense) the political landscape of Greece. On the other hand, its downfall became a textbook case of the loss of popularity of the left-wing political parties, not just in Greece, but in all of Europe. This trend is called “Pasokification” and refers to the failures of socialist parties in the West to attract members and gain votes in the last decade. Will this trend remain relevant in the current pandemic context? More
Some Aspects of Today’s Economic Growth
We include in the conceptual framework of economic growth, in a broader sense, the individual, the society, the institutional performance, the investment, geopolitical situation, but also issues of natural resource management and the current state of technological development. In this context, we can look at individuals both in terms of their own cultural evolution, in terms of the evolution of the society of which they are part, but also in terms of the environment in which they operate. More
Pieces of a Puzzling 2050
Imagining the future is frequently a delightful pastime, as evidenced by the numerous science-fiction works that have been published over the last century. The various authors pondered how humanity and the role of human beings (both collectively and individually) will be shaped by the interplay between technological advancement, societal dynamics, cultural trends, political reorganisation, space exploration and environmental change. It would not be wrong to state that some of these works have anticipated or even encouraged the development of some of today’s mundane features: the internet and wireless communication, gadgets with ever-increasing computational power and storage capacity, artificial intelligence, the search for intelligent life in the universe, plans to colonise other planets (i.e., Mars), genetic engineering as well as the negative impact of human activity on the environment and the climate. Of course, while predicting the future is challenging for even the keenest and most knowledgeable of scholars, educated guesses and analyses are still welcome and well-worth engaging in. Below are several takes by Romanian students from the Bucharest University of Economic Studies, the Master’s Programme “Geopolitics and Business”, on various issues of interest and how we can expect them to impact the world of less than three decades from now. In short, it is more or less on “their life in 2050”. The selection, assumedly casual rather than scholarly, is based on their subjective current concerns with regard to a future to be objectivated one way or another, which some of them perceive as implacably possible / plausible / probable, whilst others envisage as preferable and somehow influenceable. And if there is one thing to known for certain about the(ir) future, it is just the certainty of its arrival. More
Farewell, Camil!
I met Camil Aurelian Petrescu as if in a revelation: it was not only the scent of the novels and plays of his well-known father, which I had read long time ago, that hit me then; it was not only the scent of freedom that he brought back home from his beloved America to his beloved Romania that I inhaled then; it was simply the scent of a vividly beautiful mind and of a imperturbably good soul. More
