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“More of the same”: Elections without choice in Romania

This article is published in cooperation with the Serbo-Croatian web-portal Bilten.Org It is customary for people to complain that they have no real choice to vote for in electoral contests. No candidate is really much different from the other. They are so similar that it makes no sense to choose since there is no real […]

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To make sense of Ukraine, we need to bring the class back in

Viktor Yanukovich started his career as a thug and he remained a thug as a political leader. His regime was corrupt, patriarchal, authoritarian, inefficient and class-biased. He definitely had to go. But whoever is cheering his departure following Saturday’s vote of the Ukrainian Rada is plainly mistaken. He was deposed not as a result of […]

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A Crucial Romanian Autumn

For over a month tens of thousands of people took the streets in the major cities of Romania. They protested against the project of an opencast mine in Roșia Montana, a small mining town located in the Apuseni Mountains. In the making for almost 15 years, the project is mired in controversy. Not only that […]

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What has the European Union ever done for us?

-A note from Romania on Croatia’s integration into the EU- One should not be afraid to ask this famous Monty Python question in relation to the EU Empire. Seen from the Romanian perspective, 6 years after its integration into the EU structures, the answer should be clear. EU brought increased subordination to the rule of […]

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A Paparazzo of the Romanian Communist Nomenklatura: Vladimir Tismaneanu on the Couch

The release of Vladimir Tismaneanu’s book Lumea secreta a nomenclaturii [The Secret World of the Nomenklatura] constitutes an event. Not so much because of its content though as the author remains faithful to his own style pasting and copying information and part of the texts in the book from older published works and his personal […]

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The historical significance of Traian Băsescu’s suspension

Twenty years ago, in March 1992, NSF (National Salvation Front) split into two factions: the DNSF (Democratic National Salvation Front) – led by Ion Iliescu – which later became PSDR (Party of Social Democracy in Romania) and then SDP (Social Democratic Party), and DP (Democratic Party), the subsequent name taken by the NSF faction led […]