Politics: old vs. new
Since the fall of Communism, the country has been governed alternately by its heirs, the Social Democratic Party (PSD), and the liberals: in 1990 and 1992, former Communist Ion Iliescu won the first two presidential elections. Defeated in 1996 by the Christian Democrat Emil Constantinescu, he regained the presidency from 2000 to 2004. He was succeeded for two terms by Bucharest mayor Traian Băsescu of the Democratic Party. Then liberal Klaus Iohannis, former mayor of Sibiu, won the election in 2014. At the end of 2019, he was widely re-elected.
While the Liberals dominate the landscape in large, dynamic cities such as Bucharest, Cluj or Timișoara, the PSD maintains a strong hold in the countryside and small towns, where it retains influence over the allocation of aid and jobs. It has won most legislative elections, often with a high abstention rate.
The 1991 Constitution, inspired by the FrenchFifth Republic, confers limited prerogatives on the President, who is elected by universal suffrage for a five-year term. Executive power is mainly exercised by the government, while legislative power is held by a bicameral Parliament (Chamber of Deputies and Senate). This semi-presidential system has given rise to a variety of sometimes stormy cohabitations.
The last few years, in particular, have been turbulent, marked by numerous corruption scandals and, in reaction, by a wave of citizen protest on a scale not seen since the Revolution. During his first term of office, Klaus Iohannis saw a succession of six prime ministers. Victor Ponta (PSD) resigned in 2015, following his indictment in a corruption scandal and the fire at the Colectiv discotheque in Bucharest on October 30, 2015, which killed 64 people. The tragedy, which revealed the privileges enjoyed by the club's patrons, was the starting point for a public outcry against corruption and bad governance.
Former European Commissioner for Agriculture Dacian Cioloș was then tasked with forming a government of technocrats, until the 2016 parliamentary elections, again won by the PSD. The party led by Liviu Dragnea, itself entangled in several scandals, then launched a vast offensive to relax anti-corruption legislation, triggering new protests. They led to the resignation of the head of government, Sorin Grindeanu, who was dismissed by his own majority in 2017. He was briefly succeeded by Mihai Tudose, who was replaced in early 2018 by Viorica Dăncilă, the first woman to hold the post. She returned to the fray, spearheading highly controversial reforms, denounced by the EU, against the independence of the judiciary. Her government was overthrown in October 2019. As a presidential candidate, she achieved a pitiful score in the second round, the lowest ever for the PSD. She was replaced by the liberal Ludovic Orban, supported by a short, heterogeneous majority. As for Dragnea, he was jailed in May 2019.
These turbulent years, during which youth and civil society mobilized strongly, saw the emergence of new political forces: the Union Save Romania (USR) and the PLUS Party, launched by Dacian Cioloș. Indeed, the USR enjoyed its first major victory in 2020, when Nicușor Dan, the party's founder, won the Bucharest mayoralty. But the most spectacular breakthrough is to be credited to the far-right AUR ("Gold" in Romanian) party, which may well enter government soon.
The year 2024 promises to be crucial for Romania's future, both internally and in Europe, as it will mark the holding of presidential, legislative, local and European elections.
The ghosts of communism
The Romanian Communist regime was one of the harshest dictatorships in Eastern Europe: according to the Sighet Memorial to the Victims of Communism, over 600,000 people were imprisoned for political reasons. These prisoners suffered torture, cruel treatment, forced labor and all kinds of deprivation, particularly in the 1950s and 1960s. The Securitate, the political police, had deployed a sprawling network of informers to monitor the whole of society and suppress the slightest dissent, spreading fear, mistrust and denunciation even within families.
Yet, apart from Ceaușescu and his wife, summarily tried and executed on December 25, 1989, very few of those responsible were ever bothered. This was because no law had been passed to exclude the former apparatchiks, quite the contrary: masters of the transition, they quickly reconverted to politics and business. A few high-ranking dignitaries were convicted in the 1990s, but only for their role in suppressing the Revolution, and then quickly released. It took a quarter of a century for crimes committed during the forty years of communism to be brought to trial: in 2014 and 2015, two torturers, heads of penitentiaries and labor camps in the 1950s-1960s, were sentenced to twenty years in prison. Another emblematic trial, which opened at the end of 2019: ex-president Iliescu is on trial for "crimes against humanity". He must answer for the deaths of over 800 people in the days following Ceaușescu's fall. He is accused of having organized terror to consolidate his grip on power.
The institutions tasked with examining the Communist period were set up late: the National Council for the Study of the Securitate Archives, launched in 1999, only began to function properly in the mid-2000s, leaving plenty of time to sort through these archives and destroy the most compromising ones. Created in 2005, the Institute for the Investigation of the Crimes of Communism and the Memory of Romanian Exile (IICCMER) has undertaken a major task of investigation and remembrance.
In 2006, President Băsescu officially condemned communism in a speech to Parliament. But the work of remembrance remains incomplete. Apart from civil society initiatives, such as the Timișoara Revolution Memorial and the Sighet Memorial, no public institution has yet been created to recount this past, although a museum project is on the drawing board in Bucharest.
Corruption: the great battle
It's one of the country's deepest ills: corruption permeates the whole of Romanian society. It manifests itself at the highest levels, through embezzlement of public funds, conflicts of interest and other abuses of power. But it also affects citizens in their day-to-day lives, inviting them to pay the șpaga (bribe) for faster medical treatment, a diploma, a simple administrative procedure, a good job or a more reasonable fine. The perceived corruption index, calculated by the NGO Transparency International, places Romania among the European Union's poor performers every year: in 2023, it ranked 63rd in the world, a little better than Hungary, Greece and Bulgaria. Under pressure from the EU, Romania has had to build up its anti-corruption arsenal, which has led to some spectacular advances: laws have been tightened and special institutions set up. Launched in 2002, the National Anti-Corruption Directorate (DNA) played its role to the full, notably under the leadership of prosecutor Laura Codruța Kövesi, between 2013 and 2018. Thousands of high-ranking officials, local elected representatives, MPs, ministers and right up to head of government Victor Ponta in 2015 have been prosecuted and convicted. Codruța Kövesi became one of the country's most popular personalities. But as soon as it returned to power in 2017, the PSD set about relaxing anti-corruption legislation, amending laws, attacking the independence of the judiciary and ferreting out Codruța Kövesi, until dismissing her from office in 2018. This policy triggered a wave of protest, illustrating the population's deep-seated fed-up with this phenomenon, which is still far from being eradicated. For her part, Codruța Kövesi has been head of the European Anti-Fraud Prosecutor's Office since 2021.
Economic and social issues
In 1989, at the end of the Communist era, the economy was totally exsanguinated, unbalanced and ill-adapted to the needs of the population. Hyper-industrialized, nationalized and strictly planned by the State, it was lagging far behind the rest of Europe, including Eastern Europe. Obsessed with autarky, Ceaușescu set out to produce everything and export as much as possible, in order to pay off foreign debts as quickly as possible, even if this meant starving the population. In the early years following the collapse of communism, progress was slow. From the mid-1990s onwards, the country embarked on a far-reaching privatization and reform drive, with the aim of moving towards a market economy and attracting foreign investors.
Since the early 2000s, Romania has come a long way. Its GDP per capita has risen from 39% of the European average in 2006 to 78% in 2023. Boosted by EU accession, then hit hard by the 2008 crisis, the Romanian economy returned to growth in 2013: in 2017, it even posted the second-highest growth rate in the EU (+6.9%), thanks to household consumption, the main driver of activity. Unemployment is fairly low (5.8% by the end of 2023), and incomes have soared: the average wage, which was still only €200 in 2005, reached €850 by the end of 2023. This is the result of a labor shortage caused by an aging population and mass emigration. Some poorly-paid professions, such as teachers and nursing staff, have benefited from sharp increases.
Despite the progress made, Romania remains one of Europe's poorest countries. A quarter of the population still lives below the poverty line. Regional disparities are considerable. Cities like Bucharest, Sibiu, Cluj and Timișoara are experiencing a real economic boom. But small towns and villages are struggling, particularly in areas such as Moldova, which is among the poorest regions in the EU.
Inflation is one of the highest in the Union, at over 9% in 2023. A real problem for many Romanians: for example, apartment prices in Bucharest have soared, as have food prices, without living standards keeping pace. Public investment and infrastructure are still struggling: in 2019, for example, Romania still has only some 800 km of freeway, and hospitals are in poor condition. The country is struggling to take full advantage of the billions in European funds allocated to it.
