In the case of Trump, the most telling sign that his tariffs aren’t working appears when he backs down, plays for time, enters into negotiations, and finally imposes dwarf figures compared to the ones he threatened.
In the case of the reforms initiated by Prime Minister Ilie Bolojan, you realize that they are serious when the PSD and leader Sorin Grindeanu “mobilizes exemplarily” and endangers the stability of the governing coalition right up to the premier.
In this regard, the lowest point was on Wednesday, when, in an interview with G4Media.ro, Grindeanu tried to light the fuse that looked like a sabotage operation:
- “I want to propose to my colleagues from the PSD that we extend the internal consultation. A YES/NO question, given how the coalition works, whether to keep the coalition in this form or in a smaller form without USR. And if we go ahead with Prime Minister Ilie Bolojan. Because the protocol can remain the same, but with another prime minister given by the PNL,” he said.
The context in which Grindeanu is playing with fire speaks for itself: the budget will soon be adopted. And the budget contains a delicate mix of reform, painful for large sections of the population and painful for large underground interest groups. Even a child could see that Sorin & Co can’t longer sleep at night because of their concerns about the first category.
Their panic is, in the end, somewhat understandable, as they face two huge points of pressure:
- The success recorded by the Constitutional Court by the government led by Bolojan, in the matter of special pensions of magistrates, had a tsunami effect among the predators who for decades have been accustomed to freely swallowing the carcass of the public budget. As Romania is a country full of “specials”, judges being neither the most numerous nor the most influential. But the fact that the Constitutional Court gave the green light to reforming judges pensions paved the way for the reforms or others. Grindeanu and the PSD understood this very well, as did camps that probably lobbied Grindeanu whose party is the largest in the coalition. Grindeanu likely feels pressured simultaneously by all the large local interest groups. And probably no PSD leader has ever been under such pressure. Poor him! The only solution for the underground interest groups, is today (still) with the PSD which has never been so threatening to their interests. The positive side is that the solution to their problems is no longer in the country – what luck!. And those outside Romania have been the opponents of our anti-reformists for decades. As the Prime Minister has the CCR ruloingh on the pensions in his pocket today, the only practical method to prevent similar reforms remains to prevent them from being initiated. To stop them being initiated depends either on convincing Bolojan not to initiate them or on blowing up the current coalition, and the PSD leaving he government. Grindeanu put out message, but the truth is that he can’t do much without the PSD getting irremediably roasted.
- The European Commission has both the bread and the knife in its hands. Romania has been in such a state of indebtedness, thrown into a budget deficit and profoundly discredited on the markets by previous governments (Ciolacu, former PSD leader being the chief architect of the disaster). Romania needs the infusion of European funds, (the package negotiated within the PNRR) like it needs air. But the PNRR means vital money for vital reforms. And the Commission has shown that it will not compromise on what has been agreed. It has demonstrated it in the case of all other countries that get funds, and it has demonstrated it without the right of appeal in the case of Romania . The milestone of special pensions was the most spectacular at a public level, but there are numerous other milestones in question, because there are billions of euros at stake. Grindeanu and PSD can, of course, block Bolojan’s reforms, but in this way they will cut off access to a lot of money. Romanians may be taken for fools by the PSD (it’s a tradition that gas stretched over more than three decades), but they are certainly not stupid: they will quickly understand who actually cut the money.
In Prime Minister Bolojan’s response to Grindeanu’s indecent threats, two points can be observed:
- A school teacher like scolding,such as: “Sit down!” – Bolojan invoked the fact that he did not have his phone with him to doublecheck all the statements being made in Romania by various people.
- An appeal for reason, such as: “Come on, move, we have work!” – seen in this quote: “For the absorption from the PNRR, to attract the 10 billion euros, there are some conditions to be respected. The milestones must be met, we have reforms to do.” He added that not everyone was foreign to the “criminal record” of the Ciolacu government: “In this area we have delays from previous years, which we must recover in the next six months, so that the money to be released can be released by the Commission.”
Grindeanu’s PSD and the anti-Bolojan wing of the PNL usually have a dirty mouth when reforms tend to threaten clan interests, but they have a little room for maneuver to move from verb to action.
The disastrous economic and context in Romania and the dangerous geopolitical context, more broadly, have come together superbly this time, in the sense of broadening the potential horizon for the implementation of key reforms and diminishing the potential horizon for blocking them.
Of course, the Bolojan Government is far from perfect, just as the Prime Minister himself is not a providential man. But it is equally true that the prime minister today is someone who understands the imperatives of the moment; knows how, when and at what point to force things; and has accumulated some successes in reform both unprecedented and in a fantastically narrow time frame.
Grindeanu and PSD members would do themselves an invaluable service by learning at least at the twelfth hour what it means to authentically take responsibility and how costly sabotage can be for everyone.
