Thu
Aug
12

Moldova’s Resilience: the story of a fragile state

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Moldova may be a fragile state today, but it has made a political breakthrough due to the snap elections in 2021 that brought pro-reform political forces to power. This unique breakthrough should be regarded as the largest “window of opportunity” ever available to work on (re-)building a country’s much-needed resilience.

There is a conventional assumption that Moldova is a “failed state”, which does not at all fit the situation on the ground, where the country shows a surprising degree of resilience. It is worth distinguishing between one’s ability to survive and the ability to “bounce back” or “forward”, which is common to the standard, rather academic, definition of resilience. A more practical approach to resilience comes from international development organisations, which view resilience as “the ability to absorb and recover from shocks”, “while transforming” taking into account “long-term stress, change and uncertainty”.[1] Therefore, to understand where Moldova stands, the following analysis looks at the shortcomings that restrict its capacity for resilience, on the one hand, and the factors that have helped it stay afloat and withstand internal shocks, on the other.

Four aspects are the most important to assess the constraints under which a state operates and from which the degree of resistance can be deduced: (1) state authority; (2) enforcement of the rules; (3) control of violence; and (4) the provision of public services. In as far as Moldova is concerned, primo, despite the reliability and predictability deficit, the country still has sufficient internal and external authority to be part of and comply with international agreements. Segundo, the authorities can still set rules, respecting and importing the legislation of the global standard-setter, the EU, although they face challenges in ensuring proper enforcement. Tertio, it is true that Moldova does not represent a battlefield for military confrontations. However, there is a prolonged unresolved post-Soviet territorial conflict, which holds the country back and perpetuates uncertainty for national and regional stability and security. Cuarto, unlike a “failed state”, Moldova has public authorities that do provide services. Obviously, they may not always be of adequate quality, but the population has access to them, accepting their widespread imperfections and likely shortages, largely due to a lack of alternatives.

The Fragile States Index paints an accurate picture of the year-on-year decline in Moldova’s state performance, from the 57th place in 2006, to the 103rd in 2021 (out of 179 countries). Such decline is consequential for the state’s potential to generate and display resilience.

This mixed picture described above does not intend to underestimate the actual steadfast decline that Moldova has experienced throughout its 30 years of existence as an independent state. On the contrary, the nuances that describe the state at different levels of state affairs are indicative of the unevenness of existing resources and capacities. In addition, these have eroded over the last decade and even reached a dangerous point when the governing system fell into “state capture”[2] mode in the period 2015-2019. The Fragile States Index[3] paints an accurate picture of the year-on-year decline in state performance, from the 57th place in 2006, to the 103rd in 2021 (out of 179 countries). Such decline is consequential for the state’s potential to generate and display resilience. There are many problematic areas. The economic stagnation is acute, more recently due to the inefficient tools applied to mitigate the 2020-21 COVID-19 pandemic crisis. The growing public distrust of state institutions, except the church and the military, has put the state in trouble. Amid multiplying adversities, such as droughts, torrential rains, floods, all accelerated by climate change, state institutions do not benefit from the close understanding and cooperation of a skeptical society. As a common characteristic, citizens find themselves in distress at home due to economic hardships or frequent political crises and uncertainty. Alternatively, they plan to emigrate as one of the most common survival strategies among Moldovans of all age categories. The country’s fragile budget balance finds itself under severe strain due to declining demographics, which creates cascading effects that far outweigh the country’s long-term financial stability. In short, without solid human capital, which becomes scarce or underdeveloped due to the lack of financial resources from the state, the capacity to generate resilience, from the national to the individual level, is limited.

Vulnerability everywhere, but some areas need immediate attention

Based on the OECD’s Resilience System Analysis (RSA)[4], which operates with six dimensions of resilience – financial, human, natural, physical, political and social – this analysis aims to emphasise only those that are considered to have the highest destabilising potential in the face of an eventual local or external shock.

To begin with, the endemic corruption constitutes the greatest vulnerability in the political realm, undermining democratic practices, primarily good governance, and affecting the preparedness of state institutions. Therefore, instead of catering exclusively to the public interest, institutions begin to serve private objectives that are often mixed with political loyalty in the distribution of public finances. This problem is widespread among the heads of the local public administration, state agencies and the courts. The Corruption Perception Index[5] has always identified high levels of corruption in Moldova, with the worst ranking in 2016, when it came in at the 123rd place out of 176 countries. Public polls also attest that corruption has been leading the list of the population’s main worries: concern with the extent of corruption has grown from 5-7% in 2010-2012 to 20-25% in 2020-2021, to the point where it is perceived as being as important as economic development and the improvement of living conditions[6].

The endemic corruption constitutes the greatest vulnerability in the political realm, undermining democratic practices, primarily good governance, and affecting the preparedness of state institutions.

Another problematic aspect is the great distrust of the judiciary in Moldova, which may have social implications. More precisely, the inability to enforce the rule of law leads to the loss of strategic state assets and other types of office abuse. This affects citizens’ trust in public authorities and their willingness to be cooperative, as clearly shown by the slow vaccination process during the Covid-19 pandemic. As a result, the state’s responsiveness to a crisis can become fragmented, slow and ineffective. The monumental combination of corruption and lack of professionalism in the judicial system revolves primarily around a few specific themes. The many lost cases in the European Court of Human Rights, due to questionable decisions issued by local judges, have costed the public budget large sums (about 19 million euro in 1998-2020[7]). It is worth remembering here the facilitation of the “Russian laundromat”[8] by a group of at least 13 Moldovan judges[9], who helped divert about $ 18-20 billion from Russia by legalising fictitious debts that enabled transfers from Russian enterprises and banks through Moldovan banks further to offshore companies[10]. Finally, another severe episode of political favouritism and lack of professionalism was represented by the annulment of local elections in the capital city of Chisinau in 2018[11].

Last but not least, in terms of physical resilience, Moldova lacks a reliable power supply due to (in)direct dependence on electricity and gas supplies from the east. Russia’s unpredictability and its weaponisation of energy for political purposes has turned inherited connectivity from the Soviet era into a structural weakness today. The electricity sector depends on supplies from Ukraine, but even more from Moldova’s breakaway region (Transnistria), which being a de facto Russian exclave can turn into a geopolitical card at any time.[12] Under pressure from the Energy Community and EU assistance, national electricity procurement has become more transparent in the last 5 years. However, there is little interest from Ukrainian suppliers, due to the Cuciurgan power station[13] situated in the Transnistrian region, that produces electricity based on Russian gas for which it does not pay. As a result, the Moldovan gas operator “MoldovaGaz”, 50% of the shares of which are owned by Gazprom, continues to accumulate debts to Russia, now amounting to more than $ 7.4 billion[14]. The unresolved gas debt problem debilitates the energy sector as a whole. A similarly complicated situation is observed in the gas sector that is undergoing tectonic changes through the implementation of the EU’s Third Energy Package (since 2009). However, the country is still in the process of separating the producer from the supplier, which may break the Russian monopoly. The gas pipeline connecting Moldova with Romania, expanded in 2014-2020, is a way out towards greater diversity and predictability in terms of geography of supply, especially in the cold season. Nevertheless, despite the fact that the Romania-Moldova gas pipeline is supposed to be operational in 2021, direct contracts with Russia still appear to be more attractive, due to direct price negotiations with Gazprom. Romania’s energy system could provide a valuable boost to energy resilience, after the high voltage line in southern Romania is connected to the centre of Moldova, which is forecasted to happen by 2024.

Russia’s unpredictability and its weaponisation of energy for political purposes has turned inherited connectivity from the Soviet era into a structural weakness today.

Russia’s unpredictability and its weaponisation of energy for political purposes has turned inherited connectivity from the Soviet era into a structural weakness today.

Options for increased resilience

Resolving or at least mitigating the aforementioned vulnerabilities that undermine Moldova’s resilience requires the proper functioning of state institutions, public trust in these institutions, and decision-makers driven by the public interest. One way to improve the preparedness of institutions in the face of a crisis, from the local authorities to the national law enforcement sector, is to counter corruption through zero tolerance policies, capacity-building and the empowerment of the integrity agency, to restore the trustworthiness of the public sector. A reliable general prosecutor and court system are also of the essence. The state’s response capacity requires a solid mechanism of early warning systems and crisis management in the field of hybrid or conventional threats. However, more than that, state authorities need the public to trust them so as to follow official instructions during critical situations, such as a pandemic. For this, the comprehensive cleansing of the judiciary is essential, as it can restore the credibility of protection against abuses committed by corrupt public servants. Furthermore, a reliable judicial system will strengthen state structures, making them more accountable and therefore resistant to all kinds of uncertainty. The physical infrastructure is also of the utmost importance. Therefore, the weaknesses of the energy sector should be resolved sooner rather than later, especially given the geopolitical characteristics of this problem that gives Russia important levers on Moldova’s energy sustainability. Functional interconnections with Romania, as well as Ukraine, may be the best solutions for investing in the country’s energy resilience.

Resolving or at least mitigating some of the core vulnerabilities that undermine Moldova’s resilience requires the proper functioning of state institutions, public trust in these institutions, and decision-makers driven by the public interest.

Moldova may be a fragile state today, but it has made a political breakthrough due to the snap elections in 2021 that brought pro-reform political forces to power. This unique breakthrough should be regarded as the largest “window of opportunity” ever available to work on (re-)building a country’s much-needed resilience. The pandemic and the multiplication of natural disasters in neighbouring regions, caused by climate change, together with new adversities such as cyberattacks, show that resilience will become one of the most valuable assets that a country must have in the coming years.

[1] OECD, Guidelines for Resilience Systems Analysis: How to analyze risk and build a roadmap to resilience, 2014, https://www.oecd.org/dac/conflict-fragility-resilience/Resilience%20Systems%20Analysis%20FINAL.pdf

[2] Denis Cenusa, The Downfall of a Captured State, New Eastern Europe, 2019,  https://neweasterneurope.eu/2019/11/13/the-downfall-of-a-captured-state/

[3] The Fund for Peace, Fragile States Index 2021, https://fragilestatesindex.org/

[4] OECD, Guidelines for Resilience Systems Analysis: How to analyse risk and build a roadmap to resilience, 2014, https://www.oecd.org/dac/conflict-fragility-resilience/Resilience%20Systems%20Analysis%20FINAL.pdf

[5] Transparency International, Corruption Perceptions Index 2016, https://www.transparency.org/en/cpi/2016/index/nzl

[6] Institute of Public Policy, Public Opinion Barometer, 2010-2021, http://bop.ipp.md/en

[7] CRJM, The Republic Moldova at the European Court of Human Rights in 2020, https://crjm.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Nota-analitica-CEDO-2021.pdf

[8] The Russian Laundromat, 2014, https://www.occrp.org/en/laundromat/russian-laundromat/

[9] Cotidianul.md, 2020, https://cotidianul.md/2020/10/21/ce-spune-fostul-sef-al-procuraturii-anticoruptie-despre-cei-13-judecatori-din-dosarul-laundromat-ce-scapa-de-invinuiri/

[10] Anticoruptie.md, 2015, https://anticoruptie.md/ro/investigatii/justitie/prin-intermediul-sistemului-judecatoresc-din-r-moldova-au-fost-spalate-18-miliarde-de-dolari-din-2010-incoace-ii

[11] Moldovans Protest Nullification of Chisinau’s Mayoral Election Results, 2018, https://www.rferl.org/a/moldovans-protest-nullification-chisinau-mayoral-election/29316498.html

[12] Intellinews, 2017, https://www.intellinews.com/moldova-resumes-electricity-imports-from-transnistria-123028/

[13] US International Trade Administration, https://www.trade.gov/country-commercial-guides/moldova-energy

[14] IPN, https://www.ipn.md/ro/presedintele-moldovagaz-datoria-fata-de-gazprom-este-una-comerciala-7965_1070511.html

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Tue
Aug
10

Moldova: It’s not an East vs. West competition, but good vs. bad governance

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The double victory by Maia Sandu and the pro-European and pro-reform Party of Action and Solidarity was the easiest part of the quest to reform the Republic of Moldova. A ”gangrene” of corruption has long been affecting Chișinău and there will be hardened resistance against any attempt to alter the system. This resistance will be twofold: from within the system and from external actors which are interested in maintaining the country in a grey area.

In July 2021, the Party of Action and Solidarity (PAS), led until recently by country president Maia Sandu, won an unexpected comfortable majority in the Moldovan Parliament. With a strong anti-corruption message, the party got 52.8% of total votes, surpassing the pro-Russian Bloc of Communists and Socialists (BECS), which came in second, with only 27.1%, and the SOR Party, led by fugitive oligarch Ilan Shor, which got 5.7% of the votes. This score gave PAS 63 mandates out of the total of 101 in the new Parliament.

The electoral campaign was fought over two main opposing messages. Once again, BECS proved that they failed to understand why Igor Dodon lost the recent presidential elections by a wide margin[1]. It chose to rely on the same geopolitical messages: „East v. West” and an anti-EU rhetoric, promoting anti-Western values and disseminating slogans of the type “we will not sell our country”. As a result, BECS failed to persuade voters, even in the Russia-dominated northern part of the country. Corruption scandals and incompetence in governing the country took their toll on the party’s ability to mobilise voters.

PAS ignored geopolitics entirely and focused its campaign on anticorruption and good governance.

PAS, on the other hand, ignored geopolitics entirely and focused its campaign on anticorruption and good governance. This proved convincing for a large part of the population, including in Russian speaking counties. Boosted by Maia Sandu’s presidential victory and with an excellent campaign at grassroots level, PAS won more votes than it had expected. From the start, organising snap elections was in itself an unexpected victory for Maia Sandu, since no party – with the exception of PAS – was interested in this sort of outcome. The new government, led by Natalia Gavriliță, former Minister of Finance in Maia Sandu’s Cabinet in 2019, has been sworn in in early August.

What now?

The decisive victory comes with very high hopes and expectations. The citizens voted in favour of an anticorruption agenda and against the oligarchic system. And this is what they expect: quick results in the fight against corruption and better economic perspectives. Resistance to reform is, however, extremely high in a country riddled with corruption and organised crime. The results of the elections only give a first signal that power may no longer remain in the hands of a small group of oligarchs.

There are multiple challenges that the pro-reformist movement led by Maia Sandu will have to overcome. Reforming a corrupt system requires time, political will and well-trained human resources. Finding reformists within the system, in the public administration, secret services or the judiciary, willing to support the reform agenda, may be particularly difficult in a country affected by systemic corruption and mass migration. Delivering fast results – as expected by the citizens – may thus prove difficult.

The pattern we witnessed during the election campaign – oligarchs with diverging positions creating ad-hoc alliances against Maia Sandu and her party – will increase exponentially when the new government attempts to put a stop to corruption schemes. Oligarchs continue to control key institutions in the Republic of Moldova. Unsurprisingly, Maia Sandu’s first promise was to reform the judiciary. She pointed out clearly in a recent interview for EuroNews: “This is about eliminating the corrupt judges and the corrupt prosecutors from the system”.

The media is also far from being independent and most TV stations and outlets are still controlled by oligarchs. This gives them the opportunity to undermine the reforms that will be initiated by the new government, flood the public space with fake news and conspiracy theories and attempt to control public narratives. In a recent analysis by the Romanian Center for European Policies (CRPE) and the Foreign Policy Association (APE), focused on what Romania should do to support the pro-reform agenda in Chișinău, one of the key recommendations was to support strategic communication and independent media through technical and financial assistance. This would give a boost to the new government to better communicate their agenda to the citizens. 

The pattern we witnessed during the election campaign – oligarchs with diverging positions creating ad-hoc alliances against Maia Sandu and her party – will increase exponentially when the new government attempts to put a stop to corruption schemes.

External threats are equally dangerous. Through local proxies, the Russian Federation controls numerous political actors, media outlets or representatives of the Orthodox Church. This provides it with important public channels to disseminate their agenda and mix in pro-Kremlin messages and anti-EU ones. Eroding public support for the European Union through targeted messaging will be the main purpose of the Kremlin over the next few years.

External support for the reform agenda

Nevertheless, Maia Sandu and her party have some key allies in their task to reform the corrupt system in Chișinău – most importantly, the citizens who voted overwhelmingly in favour of their anti-corruption agenda. This has shown, once more, that slogans cannot replace actions and public trust in politicians can be earned only if competence and integrity are key characteristics of the political leaders. In the long run, the new government in Chișinău will also enjoy the support of Moldova’s key Western partners: The European Union, the United States and Romania.

Maia Sandu’s victory in November 2020 brought immediate improvement to the relationship between Chișinău and Brussels. Key support programmes were restarted, and the Union promised a large post COVID-19 recovery package for Chișinău, worth EUR 600 million. This recovery plan entails macro-financial assistance and technical support in exchange for progress on the reform agenda.

Chișinău will need both financial and technical assistance to implement reforms. Moldova, Europe’s poorest country and one heavily affected by mass migration, has been in a grey area for decades and in deadlock between Moscow and Brussels. The “pro-European” governments that led Chișinău in the past were by no means reformist. This reality consistently affected the relationship between the two capitals and derailed Moldova’s EU course.

For the first time, Chișinău has reformists both at the level of the Presidency and the Parliament. This gives Moldova a chance to speak with one voice with its key partners and donors.

It is up to the future government to deliver reforms and attract new funding to support key investments that would boost the economic perspectives of the country.

What role for Romania                                                     

Romania is Moldova’s key commercial partner and main donor and it provided the most substantial support for Chișinău during the COVID-19 pandemic. Romania, however, also supported extensively the governments of fugitive oligarch Plahotniuc and it ignored Maia Sandu’s reform agenda until quite recently. Romania bet on Plahotniuc, not Maia Sandu – a particularly risky choice, since the coalitions backed by Plahotniuc were very unpopular.

A window of opportunity has arisen once more to push for real change in Moldova. Romania must rise to the occasion, if it truly supports a pro-reform agenda in Chișinău. Support by Bucharest must continue and even be accelerated with financial and non-financial assistance, but only in exchange for the implementation of reforms.

An analysis carried out by CRPE and APE underlines 9 short term priorities that should be discussed immediately after the new government in Chișinău is sworn in: a new financial agreement to replace the 100 million EUR agreement signed 10 years ago, of which 60 million EUR remain unspent, a development plan for Moldova correlated with the new financial package from the EU, support for finalising key infrastructure and energy projects or support programmes for independent media and civil society (Romania recently announced a financial package for the civil society and media).

Romania should step up its game and support Moldova when it needs it most, this time, supporting individuals who deliver real, tangible results in advancing Chișinău’s European path. The strategic partnership between the two countries must be renewed and support for key strategic projects must be prioritised.

It will not be easy

Maia Sandu won landslide victories last year: winning the presidential elections, forcing snap elections against all odds and, most recently, the historic win by PAS in the parliamentary elections. This shows that power is not solely in the hands of a few oligarchs, but the difficult task is yet to come.

Delivering reforms, sometimes unpopular ones, will come at a cost and will meet with strong resistance. It is unclear if PAS can undertake reforms concerning all major issues at the same time – it should probably prioritise them. PAS is a young party, well-meaning, but without experience in managing unreformed and very corrupt public systems. Results may be delayed, while citizens expect them extremely fast. Any delays may erode the party’s popularity.

Slogans cannot replace actions and public trust in politicians can be earned only if competence and integrity are key characteristics of the political leaders.

The new government and the new pro-reform majority will need all possible support from Moldova’s Western partners. Anti-Western and anti-reform actors, both within and from outside the country, will surely strive to undermine the government and, indirectly, to affect trust in the EU and in Western values. This political majority is, however, Moldova’s best chance to consolidate its democracy and its course towards EU integration, including the possibility over the medium term to become a potential candidate and afterwards a candidate country for EU membership.

[1] In November 2020, Maia Sandu won the 2nd round of presidential elections by a substantial margin, with more than 57% of votes, surpassing Igor Dodon.

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Sun
Apr
18

The AURo-Atlantic Romania

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The illusion generated by Romania’s pro-European political choice has led to a collective blindness towards the country’s backsliding from European values. Increasingly, one of our core security threats comes from within, rather than outside our borders. 

Romania’s accession to the European Union and NATO was backed by almost unanimous popular support, and throughout the years the country has maintained its position among the states which held the EU and the US in the highest esteem. One generation after another has learned in school that the Latin origins of the Romanian language and people (through which we are related to France, Italy and Spain, countries that many Romanians call home today) are defining for our national identity. Through the royal family we have become related to Europe once again.

The post-1989 strategic choice Romania made was firmly pro-Western, even during the times of Ion Iliescu and Adrian Năstase, when very little of what was happening in our country was reminiscent of the realities in the EU. The Bucharest-London-Washington axis was not derailed even by Brexit, Donald Trump or Liviu Dragnea. Currently, in the EU Parliament, Romania votes consistently along the lines promoted by the Western Franco-German nucleus, and is methodically avoiding any association with the democratic backslidings of other Eastern European states. Everything in our history and identity is European, and the pinnacle of our post-1989 aspirations was always to be sought in the West.

EU membership has brought us the possibility to work and study in the West. In spite of repeated and considerable pressures on the rule of law and democracy, over the past years Romanians have supported the anti-corruption agenda, whether at the ballot or in the streets through protest. Romania’s presence at the head of the fastest-growing EU economies has been constant in recent years, its GDP increasing eightfold since the 1990s. We are among the most reliable European countries regarding the NATO defence expenditure pledges.

The forest of backwardness hidden behind the European trees

In such a context, how could one ever suspect that we are anything but the quintessential expression of Euro-enthusiasm? We have fed ourselves with the illusion that the only possible direction was ‘further and further to the West’; that modernisation and Europeanisation are inevitable processes; that we are invulnerable to the problems faced by our neighbours – from the rise of the far-right and the intolerance towards migrants and minorities of any kind, to the slide into authoritarianism, the spread of Russian propaganda and attempts at destabilisation, simply because ‘we are so pro-West and anti-Russian’.

There is another reality represented by a version of Romania that looks more and more different from what Europe really represents structurally and in terms of values and identity.

Notwithstanding these realities which some of us share, there is another reality represented by a version of Romania that looks more and more different from what Europe really represents structurally and in terms of values and identity. The political class is using the pro-European discourse opportunistically, rather than with the purpose of genuinely promoting a set of values to Romanian society. The policies adopted in the past decades have effectively marginalised the people that do not live in large urban centres, and thus see themselves trapped in a context that does not offer them many of the opportunities that promised to be so abundant at the time of the country’s accession to the European Union: a country with families split between those that have left to a seek better income in the West and those that have stayed and have been supported by them, a country in which some of us have prospered because of the new economic trends, whilst others have felt overwhelmed by changes that we did not understand and that nobody prepared us for.

The success of AUR, inconceivable until recently, as well as all the instances of ultraconservative and antidemocratic actions are primarily a consequence of this trend.

The traditional parties have fostered a radical electorate behind their democratic rhetoric

Until the moment the exit poll in December’s parliamentary elections was announced, the Romanian media’s interest in the AUR party was close to zero. The shock generated by the collective realisation that a party unknown to most people was to become the fourth-largest political force in the country generated an avalanche of articles that either presented the profile of the AUR candidates and their most outrageous declarations, or commented in an alarmist tone on the consequences of Romania’s entry in the ranks of the European states with extremist representation in their parliaments. However, all these approaches are distant from the essence of the problem.

The Romanian electorate with sympathies towards populist or nationalist narratives is not new. Although the 9% score obtained by AUR may seem very high, in the parliamentary elections with the lowest turnout since the Romanian Revolution this translated into little more than around 540,000 votes. This number seems less impressive if compared with the one million votes received by PPDD in the 2012 elections, when this (now-defunct) party capitalised upon the ongoing hardships associated by the economic crisis through its staunchly populist discourse.

AUR has achieved prominence because it gives a voice to a part of the population, and promises to fill the void that they feel.

The duplicitous rhetoric used by Romania’s main political parties is one of the reasons why this segment of the population has remained largely under the radar in the past years. Hence the Social Democratic Party (PSD), along with smaller parties such as PRO Romania or ALDE, and even the National Liberal Party (PNL), have adopted a nominally democratic pro-European rhetoric meant to gain the sympathy, or at least the trust, of Romania’s international partners. At the same time, these same groups have not shied away from adopting socially conservative and even antidemocratic positions when this promised some easily obtained electoral points. In fact, such electorates were actively cultivated.

Apart from social values, the main parties have also pushed for policies that led in the end to an uneven, imbalanced development. After three decades when PSD, nominally a social-democratic party, has regularly governed Romania, our country is still at the very bottom of the risk of poverty rankings in the EU: according to Eurostat, in 2018, 23.5% of Romanians were in a difficult or very difficult financial situation. At the same time, although the PNL defines its vision as promoting a ‘respect for diversity’, among others, this party voted almost unanimously in favour of the illiberal 2018 referendum aimed at banning same-sex marriages in Romania. It is also fairly clear that repeated declarations with nationalist and anti-Hungarian undertones by some PNL leaders did not do much in helping promote the party as a defender of liberalism in our society.

Although it may seem that the rise of AUR comes from its clear, simple and ideologised discourse, this dimension comes only second among the factors that have contributed to its success. Although undeniably persuasive and well-adapted to the dynamics of social media, the discourse of AUR only represents a vehicle being used with great effectiveness. First and foremost, AUR has achieved prominence because it gives a voice to a part of the population, and promises to fill the void that they feel. This void is the key, and not the fact that an agile and opportunistic actor has observed a vulnerability and has learned to exploit it. The current excessive focus on AUR, as if it represents a sole and exhaustive expression of political radicalisation in Romania, is moving the spotlight away from the true issue: the practices of the main parties and the failure of their development policies.

Romania has the largest disparities between the regions with the highest and lowest GDP per capita in the entire European Union (the most developed region in our country is 3.6 times more prosperous than the least developed one).

AUR remains the least of our worries

What we are seeing is fundamentally a problem of social exclusion and absence of opportunities. The chronic distrust in the state authorities and moderate political forces, or even the quintessential institutions of representative democracy, stems from their sustained incapacity to generate prosperity. Although not alone in facing this issue, Romania has been performing exceptionally poorly in this chapter, year after year. In September 2020, essential democratic institutions received abysmal trust ratings: only 9.5% of Romanians trusted the country’s parliament, while 13.7% had confidence in the country’s government. 

If there were truly a climate of public trust in the country’s institutions, the conspirational and anti-system discourse of AUR could not have resonated in such a way. Their nationalist and illiberal rhetoric lacks rigour if it is not assembled upon a frame of distrust and alienation amongst segments of the society. Unfortunately, the unequal socio-economic evolution of our country has led precisely to this reality. 

Between 2014 and 2019, Romania prided itself in one of the biggest GDP increases in the EU, over 40%. In recent years, some areas of the country have experienced a remarkable growth, with standards of living coming to a par with those in Western Europe. According to Eurostat, in 2019 the Bucharest-Ilfov area had a GDP per capita (at purchasing power parity) larger than that of cities such as Helsinki or Berlin. The contrasts within the country, however, are enormous. Romania has the largest disparities between the regions with the highest and lowest GDP per capita in the entire European Union (the most developed region in our country is 3.6 times more prosperous than the least developed one). All other regions of our country feature on the lower third of the EU’s development ranking.

Romania has a major social mobility issue as well. According to the 2020 Global social mobility index from the World Economic Forum, Romania is the second most difficult place in the EU to improve your social and financial situation if you are from a low-income background. Only Greece, a country devastated by an economic crisis spanning almost 10 years, fares worse among EU states at this indicator.

Marginalisation – a national security risk

An analysis conducted in 2016 by the Romanian National Institute of Statistics revealed that the counties with the largest percentage of former residents that have emigrated over the shortage of jobs were in the province of Moldova. In Neamț, the number of emigrants almost equals the number of existing workplaces in the county. There is no coincidence that such regions lacking any opportunities have the constituencies where AUR obtained its best results. For as long as the socio-economic developments leave behind winners and losers separated by such a large gap, the conditions favouring the success of nationalist parties will linger on. And as economic and political results are oftentimes attributed to the European Union in the public psyche, the resentment towards a West perceived as not delivering on expectations can be expected to rise (which will also be amplified by parties keen to find a scapegoat for all of the country’s misfortunes). 

Abandoning such a large portion of our population to underdevelopment represents a major vulnerability for our country in the face of rising authoritarianism and illiberalism, and therefore poses a structural risk that malign foreign actors will be very keen to exploit in order to slow down and reverse the country’s modernisation and Europeanisation.

Abandoning such a large portion of our population to underdevelopment represents a major vulnerability for our country in the face of rising authoritarianism and illiberalism, and therefore poses a structural risk that malign foreign actors will be very keen to exploit in order to slow down and reverse the country’s modernisation and Europeanisation. When people see themselves systematically neglected by conventional political actors and the institutions that are meant to serve them, they turn their hopes and support to whichever options promising a change. AUR has communicated effectively; it knew who its target-audience was; it has indeed been helped by the context of heightened uncertainty and distrust amplified by the pandemic, and it has exploited the popularity of the church in the countryside to attract the most visible and vocal part of the dissatisfied. However, many more have remained under the diffuse influence of PSD, PNL and their smaller satellites, where they serve as an exploitable demographic that is much larger than the 500,000 votes which AUR won last time.

The Romanian version of the article was published on Adevărul.

About the projectSupported by the National Endowment for Democracy, Political Capital and its partners from Austria, Bulgaria, Czechia, Poland, Slovakia and Romania are researching value-based attitudes to foreign policy and authoritarian influence in the European Union’s institutions.

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16

Let’s make a folder. What do we know about AUR, the new golden party of the Romanian far right?

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The far-right Alliance for the Unity of Romanians (AUR) was the big surprise of the recent Romanian parliamentary elections. Against a background of low turnout (32%) it obtained 9% of the vote. Only two months ago, during the recent local elections, it had only 1%[1].

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