Tag Archives: Romania

December 30, 2019

We Asked on the Legacy of Corbynism – Matan Kaminer

by Matan Kaminer  

What has the Corbyn project meant – as a model, an inspiration, or otherwise – to you and people in the milieu(x) in which you organize? The consistent left in Israel is mostly made up of Palestinian citizens, organized in the Communist Party and its front group Hadash/al-Jabhah, the liberal-nationalist Balad/Tajama’u (who both form part of the Joint List parliamentary formation) and smaller extra-parliamentary formations like Abnaa’ el-Balad. These have generally been sympathetic to Corbyn due to his support for the Palestinian cause, but I don’t get the impression that they have been following ..

December 30, 2019

We Asked on the Legacy of Corbynism: Sorin Gog

by Sorin Gog  

What has the Corbyn project meant – as a model, an inspiration, or otherwise – to you and people in the milieu(x) in which you organise? In the Central and Eastern European region, Romania stands out as one of the countries that has adopted some of the most radical neo-liberal reforms in the past three decades of post-socialist transformation. Starting with the shock therapies, economic restructurings and privatizations of the mid-90’s and ending with the structural reforms and austerity policies adopted after the 2008 financial crisis, Romania has become deeply entrenched in neo-liberal reforms ..

August 21, 2019

One Falls, We all Fall! Manifesto of international feminist solidarity

by Cade una cadem toate  

On the 26th of July, Alexandra Măceșanu, aged 15, was declared missing. The teenage girl had been kidnapped 3 days prior from nearby the city of Caracal, in the south of Romania, held against her will and raped by 65-year-old Gheorghe Dincă. Dincă confessed not only to her murder, but also to that of Luiza Melencu, who had been declared missing in April. The shock caused in society by these events continued in the days that followed, when we learnt that Alexandra had struggled and managed to call the police three times during the days of her abduction, before being murdered. Police agents did not just fail to ..

July 4, 2019

Patching Up the Romanian Economic Miracle

by Dan Cirjan  

Romania’s main political battles for this year, or at least its most violent and its most consequential, will unfold in what will apparently be dry technical discussion about interbank rates, just as seemingly neutral actors like the Central Bank will play an essential role in this year’s elections. Continue reading →

June 12, 2019

The Only Way is Back: Romanian Social-Democrats after Liviu Dragnea

by Dan Cirjan  

This article is published in cooperation with Bilten: Regional Portal. 1. Failing against all odds Just as the polls were announcing a crushing defeat for the Romanian Social-Democrats at the European elections, their party leader, Liviu Dragnea, was slowly being escorted to prison, putting what is probably an end to his political career: a three and a half year sentence had been handed in to him, a blast from his past as a local official in one of the poorest of Romania’s counties. It wasn’t the first time a high-ranking Social-Democrat had been sent jailed: in 2012, former prime-minister and former presiden ..

April 11, 2019

Call Upon Candidates Running for European Parliament: Public social housing should be a priority for the European Parliament Agenda for 2019-2023

by BLOCUL Pentru Locuire  

Support the Adoption of a European Housing Strategy that allows for and also requires member states to: -Regulate real-estate business for the benefit of public good-Support the production of social housing and other types of public good in order to ensure universal access to adequate housing in accordance with the fundamental right to housing I. HOUSING CRISIS IN ROMANIA AND THE EUROPEAN UNION The map from above (CECODHAS Housing Europe Review, 2011) shows that Romania is among those EU Member States where the percentage of the social housing within the whole housing stock is the lowest. According to the data ..

January 7, 2019

Gas on Fire: the Romanian State for Sale

by Florin Poenaru  

Note from the LeftEast editors: this article has been published in collaboration with the Balkan web-portal Bilten.org. The original publication can be found here. On October 24, the Romanian Parliament voted a law that regulates the fiscal regime of the offshore gas exploitation in the Black Sea. It rules in favor of the gas companies that will extract the gas who will bag 56% of the profits, even after paying royalties and income taxes to the state. Normally, states usually get between 60%-80% of the profits. Not in the Romanian case. The current arrangement was arrived at after months of protracted negotiatio ..

November 5, 2018

Romanian Agriculture and its Discontents: Its Social Importance, Its Economic Insignificance

by Dan Cirjan  

This article has been published in collaboration with Bilten. According to the Eurostat statistics for 2016, one third of all farms in the EU can be found in Romania- roughly 3,600 thousand agricultural holdings. Similarly, the country boasts the largest share of labor force employed in agriculture in the EU, a staggering 26% of the population working in the sector, way beyond any possible European average. By contrast, France features a puny 2.14 %, Croatia, 9.16 %, and Poland 11.5 %. Even compared with non-EU European countries, the figures are outstanding: only 6.71 % of Russia’s labor force is employed in a ..

October 24, 2018

Transformations of housing provision in Romania: Organizations of subtle violence

by Ioana Florea and Mihail Dumitriu  

This article is based on empirical data and is a small part of an ongoing research project on housing struggles and transformations in housing policies in Romania. We look at these transformations within the wider historical and economic context, outlining some of the links between privatization and austerity measures, individualization and privatization of housing provision, and the role of NGOs as subtle facilitators of such (often violent) processes. Waves of housing policy in the context of “transition” In Romania, as in other ECE countries, “the implementation of housing reform became one of the first ..

October 3, 2018

The putsch that never was: Romanian PSD in turmoil

by Florin Poenaru  

Note from the LeftEast editors: this article has been published in collaboration with the Balkan web-portal Bilten.org. The original publication can be found here. Liviu Dragnea, the head of the Social Democratic Party (PSD), recently survived a small rebellion. A few of his colleagues asked him to resign his positions as head of the party and head of the Lower House in Parliament. However, Dragnea, whose nickname Daddy evokes the patriarchal atmosphere of a famous Tennessee Williams play, managed to win this battle. Or at least this is what is visible publicly: the internal vote went heavily in favor for Dragne ..