The Patriots of convenience

Only a few days have passed since the polls that announced that Romanians’ trust in the European Union has plummeted by more than 20 points in the last 8 years, with only 46% declaring today that Romania’s membership in the European Union is a good thing, compared to 62% of the European average, and that politicians at the top of the state have also ridden the wave of Euro-skepticism. If Romanians have begun to look askance at the EU, why shouldn’t their leaders emulate them?

 

Last week, President Klaus Iohannis, who has also plummeted in the polls, took a completely off-the-charts swipe at the European Union: „It is regrettable that such ultra-bureaucratic approaches call into question the good faith of the Commission,” he said, criticizing the calculation formula on the basis of which Brussels announced compensation for farmers affected by grain imports from Ukraine.

 

Under pressure from President Iohannis, the Commission has reportedly agreed to reconsider the €10 million, which the Bucharest authorities consider derisory. Romanian farmers had hoped to receive about ten times more, but without being able to prove their losses with maps.

President Klaus Iohannis may not leave behind an educated Romania, but a Eurosceptic Romania he certainly does. In 2015, around the time Mr. Iohannis took office as president, the number of Romanians who said EU membership was a good thing was significantly higher, at 68%, compared to the EU average at the time of 54%.

 

Since then, confidence in the EU has steadily plummeted, with no direct contribution from the president. On the contrary, in his first term Klaus Iohannis held the pro-European line while the Dragnea regime sought to take Romania out of the orbit of Western values. As a staunch pro-European, Klaus Iohannis still hopes to take up one of the important positions in Brussels after the end of his term at the Cotroceni, mainly as President of the European Council.

 

Fighting for Romania to get more money for farmers is OK, that’s the point of his presence at the Council meetings he hopes to chair one day. But from here to questioning the „good faith” of the Commission is a long way, which only professional conspiracy theorists are very quick to see behind every gesture of Brussels a diabolical plan against member countries.

Cursing the European Commission, the „Brussels bureaucrats”, has become a profitable business everywhere in the EU, not just in Romania. It is always others who are to blame for your own failures.

 

REPER MEP Dacian Ciolos on Friday criticized the European Commission for approving the marketing of food products containing insect meal. He argued in a press release: „Our food culture is totally different in the EU and I don’t see why such ingredients should be part of food preparations in the EU”.

 

A former European Commissioner for Agriculture and head of the Renew Europe parliamentary group, Cioloș criticized „the result of the European Commission’s failure to estimate the public and political impact and to foresee and counteract the way some topics are used as anti-EU propaganda material. Such topics are not properly assessed by the European Commission or European political leaders even from a cultural point of view. Thus, all hasty measures backfire on the European Union and I say this as a pro-European.”

 

He made these comments based on the results of a survey carried out by Avangarde on behalf of G4Media, which shows that when asked „Do you personally believe that the statement „Brussels forces us to eat insects” is a reality or is it used as a propaganda tool against the European Union?”, 33% answered that it is a reality, 50% said it is a propaganda tool against the EU, 16% could not judge and 1% did not answer.

„To be clear, the European Commission or any other European institution has NO way of forcing someone to eat insects or anything else. There are NO EU subsidies for insect farms. There are a number of European Commission decisions, based on technical assessments, which authorize the marketing of food products containing insect meal ingredients, but the choice is up to the consumer and the labelling rules are clear so that people know what they are buying,” Ciolos said.

 

By taking this position, Ciolos is in turn perpetuating the anti-European narrative based on the false claim that „Brussels is forcing us to eat insects”, even though the REPER leader’s stated intention is to help the EU avoid making mistakes in the future. But what’s the point of shouting at Brussels phrases like „Our food culture is totally different in the EU and I don’t see why such ingredients should be part of the cuisine in the EU” when you still admit that no one is forcing you to eat insect protein?

 

Ciolos’ exit seems completely meaningless and can only be explained by a desire to exploit an issue with the potential to garner easy votes.

As the mapacuproiecte.ro website has already explained, „The European Union has authorised these species for consumption so that their production and marketing are regulated. The influx of immigrants from Asia has brought new eating habits to Europe. These cannot be banned and must be regulated, covered by legislation. At the same time, insects are presented by the UN as a formidable alternative source of animal protein. Humanity, which is growing in numbers, needs sources of food. Authorising these sources does not lead to their being imposed on consumers. The European Union requires manufacturers to inform customers whether certain products contain protein derived from processed insects.”

Finally, PSD leader Marcel Ciolacu didn’t miss the moment either. In an interview for Romania TV (a station that provides a platform for Russian, conspiracy, anti-European and anti-Western narratives), Ciolacu promised that once he becomes prime minister he will implement a government programme that will focus on „economic patriotism”.

 

His speech is full of anti-Western narratives, such as „Gone are the days when Romania was closing factories one after the other and was an outlet for the whole world!” or projecting his statist view of the economy in seemingly meaningless phrases: „in times of crisis, the state must intervene for a limited period. But it’s not normal not to let a country have no standard of living (…) Otherwise, you will have a social crisis”.

 

The PSD leader is preparing intensively for the post of prime minister, announcing now that he will play the role of the paternalistic state, which takes care of everything and intervenes heavily in the economy. Elena Deacu explained at length in Economedia.ro how the Romanian state uses the failure of its own institutions to intervene even more strongly in the market.

 

The election campaign for the 2024 elections has not even begun and Romanian politicians are already governing with their eyes on the polls and their ears open to the anti-European rhetoric of the extremist AUR party, which is rising in the polls.

 

Like any weak leader with no long-term vision, Romanian politicians do not behave like an elite, who understand that their role is to turn around a dangerous narrative for the country, not to climb on it. And if they, the leaders of the country behave like that, what expectations should one have from the common people, manipulated from morning to night by media populism in lethal combination with the desperation of politicians who would support any enormity for a handful of votes.

 

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Romania has reached a dangerous point where the anti-European narrative has become critical mass. The duty of real political leaders is to do everything in their power to reverse this catastrophic direction, namely the country’s exit from the Western orbit, which only Romania’s enemies want.

 

With a year or so to go before the elections, the temptation to populism will always be stronger than a sense of responsibility.

Translated