Category: Society Today

Located in the central-eastern part of Bucharest, the Alexandru Ioan Cuza Park covers 85 hectares, and is one of the largest landscaped areas of green space in the capital, also having a lake in its center. Known since the communist era – when it was laid out – as the IOR park (after the name of the nearby optical equipment factory), it is still one of the favorite areas in Bucharest for promenades and outdoor activities. Unfortunately, the air, even here, has become polluted in recent years. In 2005, 12 hectares of the park were returned to pre-Communism owners, in a lawsuit that remains controversial to this day. After a certain period since the so-called ‘privatization’ of this perimeter, the residents of the area noticed the vandalism on the green space there. For example, since then, there were 21 vegetation fires. In order to counter the destruction of the park and air pollution, the citizens of the neighboring neighborhood formed the Civic Initiative Group IOR – Titan, in an attempt to counter the destruction of the environment in which they live. What upsets them in particular, we learn from Alex Icodin, a member of the civic initiative group.

“We were born in a green neighborhood, with the green IOR park, beautiful, with alleys, with playgrounds. And now we find that the park disappears from year to year, it is poisoned, set on fire, assigned to some people, retroceded on some documents that we don’t think are right, and this will be proven. And we no longer benefit from the green nature of the IOR park, the place where we grew up and spent our childhood. The trees were systematically drilled, they were poisoned, they dried up where they stand, they began to fall. The passage of time and weather were not enough. They also set fire to them. There have been a lot of fires in the park, and we always report fires and call the fire department and thank them for that. Do you realize what it’s like for a park to burn for hundreds of meters between blocks? All these things are done to turn the park into a desert that no longer matters for the citizens, a desert that, through illegal interventions, they hope to eventually turn into construction land, a desert that is a terrible reminder of the green place that we enjoyed, and that we want our children and grandchildren to enjoy.

Following the protests and complaints from this group, the authorities timidly began to take certain measures, without much success. For example, the lawsuit by which the city hall of sector 3 of Bucharest was supposed to recover this piece of land was lost. What are the people in the neighborhood doing in the meantime? They keep protesting tirelessly, Alex Icodin tells us.

“We are trying to help recover these 12 hectares in the IOR park on behalf of the citizens of Sector 3. It is complicated, because we know that there were some lawsuits that the local mayor’s office lost, because there are many interests involved. You realize that, in the middle of Bucharest, twelve hectares on which some people want to build, to make a profit, and some other crazy things with very high stakes. On the other hand, we managed to mobilize the citizens and this spring we managed to gather over 1,500 people to protest in the park, to feel that it is their property, which was unjustly taken away, and to claim their rights.

This fall, however, after years of protests, a symbolic victory finally took place: the capital city hall issued a record fine of 35 million euros for the destruction of green space. An impressive sum, but who could pay it? The owner of the retroceded and vandalized land in the Alexandru Ioan Cuza park, former IOR, is an octogenarian pensioner, a fence for real businessmen, as believed by the members of the initiative group, among whom is Cristian Neagoe.

“This fine is, finally, a serious signal from the mayor’s office that things don’t have to stay that way. It’s a record fine, and puts ecocide among the very nasty things a real estate developer or, let’s face it, the kickback mafia can do. Unfortunately, like any fine, it comes a little too late. Those poisoned trees are gone. It will take decades for them to grow back. The green space was scoured, it was destroyed. These things cannot be brought back to their original state without investing a lot of time and a lot of effort. It is important to say that we don’t have that much time left to restore the park and green areas in Bucharest, because, as you can see, the weather is starting to get warmer. Cities are islands of heat. We need these green spaces like we need air, especially since, at the moment, in reality, we have less than seven square meters of green space per inhabitant in Bucharest, and we would need about 50 for a decent life, according to the World Health Organization.

Meanwhile, the owner challenged the record fine in court. Therefore, another lawsuit is upcoming, against other reprehensible acts alleged by the IOR-Titan Group, such as dumping a pile of dirt to block the entrance to the park in front of a subway station. But, as the members of the civic initiative group assure us, these tactics will not deter them, and they will continue to claim their right to live in a neighborhood with clean air and green spaces.

In 2023, young people continued to question the state, and the answers received can be found in the diagnostic report that ended the Active Citizens for Quality Public Services project, organized by the Romanian Academic Society (RAS). Now in its second edition, after the one held in 2022, the project had two components. The first involved monitoring how public administration in 8 cities deals with education, waste management, and public transport.

The second was the advocacy component put into practice through the involvement of 80 young volunteers who talked with citizens of the 8 localities, found out what displeased them and, above all, showed them what the laws say about the issues which concern them. Regarding the diagnostic report on education, waste management, and public transport, improvements were found compared to 2022, but also backtracking in the analyzed areas, namely Alba Iulia, Bacău, Baia Mare, Constanța, Deva, Giurgiu, Râmnicu Vâlcea, and sector 1 of Bucharest. The scores given to waste management and public transport increased, but decreased in the education chapter, the main problems being found in the distribution of scholarships. Regarding waste, however, Andreea Petruț, the coordinator of this section, concluded:

“There are certain increases in terms of waste management. It hasnt improved much, but in some cases there are significant changes. It seems important to me to mention here, for example, the situation in Bucharest, sector 1, where I really noticed that there are people who really care how to respond to our requests or what steps they tried to take this year. Although they initially started with a fairly low score, it has now increased by almost 10 points. In Alba Iulia we did not find significant changes, but neither did we find them in the other municipalities. As I said, there is a slight increase, but practically the progress made does not determine a significant situation or improvement for any of these cases. We have collection centers with volunteers that are for special waste streams, i.e. bulky waste, construction waste, or electrical and electronic waste. Then I noticed several campaigns to inform and educate citizens, and here I will highlight the case of the municipality of Bacău, where they also developed an application for citizens, so that they can find information more easily and report problems more easily. Other negative aspects that I really want to mention concern the lack of effort to implement the pay for what you throw away economic tool. We do not have any municipality that has successfully implemented this economic tool.”

There is also a lack of data on waste recycling, a chapter that, together with the general level of selective waste management, places Romania among the problem countries of the EU regarding environmental protection. Andreea Petruț details the information contained in the diagnosis report.

“What I want to point out is that there is a complete lack of transparency. I mean, if you want to look up how much a county has recycled right now, you have nowhere to go. This data is not public, and it is sad, because it is still data of public interest. Its not just me, doing the research, that should have access to them, but any citizen interested in this public services in his locality should be able to go to the website of the sanitation operator for this type of information. The legislation explicitly states that, at the level of each locality, there must be a website where citizens can be informed about the waste collection schedule or how to select it. In the end, how much does it cost you to make a website? Its common sense and easy to do, and would actually help improve the situation. But if we dont have sanctions for these explicit things as well, some municipalities will probably never change that.”

With regard to public transport, in the 8 localities the accessibility of the means of transport, the interconnectivity of the stations, compliance with the schedule, the degree of hygiene, and the facilities for vulnerable groups were analyzed. Bucharest received the highest score because, in any case, the public transport network is the most developed in the capital of the country, considering the size of the city. And, here, measures have recently been taken both to streamline the traffic for buses and trolleybuses, but also to monitor their schedule through dedicated applications. At the same time, however, the measurement of citizens satisfaction starts at a very low level, it being well known that many Bucharest residents, and not only them, choose to travel by car, because public transport does not meet some basic criteria of predictability and cleanliness, according to Andra Mețac, coordinator of the Active Citizens for Quality Public Services project.

“We also scored the reaction of citizens, and the reasons why they do not access public transport: lack of hygiene, lack of compliance with the program, and the needs of citizens, display of and compliance with the schedule, so that it is accessible to all users. And then quite small things, which we might initially say do not have such a big impact, such as a simple display of the stops and the times when a bus arrives. These have quite a big impact on the community, and I feel it seems a little funny, considering that we are talking about such a simple need.”

Therefore, basic things, while unnaturally long awaited, increase the quality of a service when they finally happen. And this is an additional reason why young people – and not only them – must monitor more often those in charge of the good running of the community, including through programs similar to the Quality of Public Services at the Local Level project, run by RAS.

A record sum of 1 million euros was raised at the
Festival of Christmas Trees auctioned on 8th December by the Save
the Children NGO. 22 trees were decorated by well-known Romanian artists and
designers. The money raised will be used to provide social and educational
support to vulnerable children at severe risk of poverty and social exclusion.

Organised in partnership with the National Museum of
Art of Romania, the auction was now in its 20th year. George Roman,
a programme director at Save the Children, tells us more:

The Festival of Christmas Trees has become a
fashionable charity among companies and entrepreneurs with sufficient resources
to be able to support programmes for children. At each edition, around 20-25
Christmas trees designed by famous designers are put up for auction. The trees
can then be admired for a week or more in the venues where the auction is held,
usually hotels, the Parliament Palace a few times, and in recent years at the
National Museum of Art of Romania. On gala night, the trees are put up for
auction by business people or representatives of companies we have already
worked with before or who wish to help the Save the Children Organisation run
its educational programmes for children.

George Roman also mentioned some of the VIPs who have
helped the organisation:

I’d like to start with Doina Levintza, an
extraordinary artist who every year since 2001 has designed for us some
extraordinary trees. The sum raised with her trees is probably the highest.
Many people from the world of sports have helped by taking part in the
auctions, such as Horia Tecău, Ilie Năstase, Ion Țiriac, Nadia Comăneci, who
took part in two or three editions, Gabriela Szabo and Simona Halep. TV stars
who have helped include Andreea Esca and Andreea Raicu, who have in fact been
hosting the auction for a few years, as well as Smiley and Cătălin and Andra
Măruță. In the first edition we benefited from the help of the British and
Swedish ambassadors.

The Christmas trees put up for auction are each one of
a kind. This year, the two most successful each raised 140,000 euros. More than
9 million euros have been raised through this event across all editions. Is
this a lot, or on the contrary, very little compared with what is needed?
George Roman:

Let’s say it’s a useful sum, for it allows us to
multiply our activities in many communities and we can only do this depending
on how much we collect every year. Some of the programmes we run and which
involve long-term intervention may require as much as 300-400,000 euros. The
results are extraordinary, for we are all aware of the quality of education
available in rural areas. A PISA survey published a few days ago shows a great
gap between the results of children made vulnerable by poverty and those living
in advantaged environments, a gap amounting to 3 school years. So our
programmes are targeted to these areas, because that’s where they are most
needed.

Thanks to the Festival of Christmas Trees, more than
200,000 children will be able to benefit from the Save the Children programmes.
George Roman explains:

Such examples are the educational programmes,
especially those referring to remedial education, intended to give a second
chance to children who have abandoned school a few years ago and who cannot be
easily reintegrated into the system without special classes; a programme called
School after School, which also provides a hot meal to children in many
communities. Almost 150,000 children who benefited from social and economic
support or programmes to prevent school drop-out were reintegrated into the
school system. We are also running programmes for pre-school children, called
the Summer Kindergarten, mainly in Romania’s poorest communities, where there
are no nursery schools and where the 2-3 months of classes before starting
school are crucial. Studies show that school drop-out in the first years of
school is precisely the result of the lack of training in the pre-school years and this is why the
Summer Kindergarten programmes are a priority for us, so far having been able
to provide assistance to 10,000 children in isolated villages in Romania.

Also, more than 100 school libraries were equipped
with tens of thousands of books, classrooms were renovated and refurbished,
tens of thousands of children received school supplies and their parents
received assistance, for it is almost impossible to design activities for the
school education of children without taking into account their families.

In Romania, the risk of poverty and social exclusion has
always been much higher in the rural areas compared with the urban areas. The
recent PISA report of the OECD underlines that without additional investment in
the areas struggling with structural poverty, the gaps will become even wider.
George Roman, a programme director for Save the Children, warns:

Let it be clear that we are the country with the
lowest investment in education and it is only through gradual increase in
investments that we can reach the European average. At the moment, Romania
invests 3-3.2% of its GDP in education, while the European average is around
5%. So there’s a lot of catching up to do for a school in the rural area to
look exactly like one in the urban environment. It’s the most decent thing a
government can do for Romanian children. No child should be doomed to poverty
and lack of good education because of where they are born!

2023 is also the year in which the Cultural Consumption Barometer turns 18. The National Institute for Cultural Research and Training carries out this important study every year, except during the period of pandemic restrictions when, most institutions being partially closed, the data would have been irrelevant. In fact, the recently launched edition for 2022 highlights precisely the fact that the reduction in cultural activities from 2020-2021 has not been walked back. There is still a gap between the pre-pandemic period of 2019 and the post-pandemic period of 2022. For example, the reported declines in public cultural consumption are: attending theater performances fell from 29% in 2019 to 20% in 2022, watching movies in the cinema from 35% in 2019 to 26% in 2022, visiting museums, exhibitions or art galleries fell from 38% in 2019 to 30% in 2022. The only increase was recorded for visiting historical monuments or archaeological sites, at least once a year, 14%.

Other clarifications are provided by Carmen Croitoru, the general director of NICRT:

“I’ve noticed that the trends hold, though. Therefore we are somewhat better than in 2021, we are on an upward trend, but we have not yet reached the consumption level of 2019. There is obviously a predominant orientation towards the online environment and the non-public space. Those who have discovered the consumption of culture in the domestic and individual space find it difficult to give up this habit, because it involves going out. However, we are happy to note something related to the 18-35 age segment, i.e. young people are more active and go out more in the public space because they also need this type of socialization, mediated by culture. There are big drops, unfortunately, in a lot of consumption figures. But, happily, we note a permanent upward trend in visiting heritage sites. This means that, finally, in the consciousness of the Romanian public, heritage has gained a place, an importance, an image.

From 2019 to 2022, the increase in the consumption of cultural products on the Internet is visible not only in terms of accessing streaming networks for movies or listening to music on various digital platforms. In addition, the reading and purchase of books online has increased, although, in general, Romanians still read very little. Other data, obtained this fall from the National Institute of Statistics, found that over half of Romanians had not read a book in the last 12 months, the main reason given by them being a lack of time (35%), and lack of interest in reading books (32 %). The Cultural Consumption Barometer confirms the absence of this appetite, and indicates that the reading of printed books has decreased by 9% from 2019 to 2022, while the consumption of books, articles, or other written materials in digital format has increased by 11%. In addition, the research carried out by NICRT identifies certain social financial barriers because of which the consumption of culture in the public space is either difficult or completely absent. And among these obstacles is the extremely concrete one of the lack of road infrastructure: if to get to the theater, the cinema or a bookstore, people have to travel many kilometers on foot or with poor public transport, then they will give up altogether on that type of culture. Anda Becuț-Marinescu, head of the research service within the NICRT, talks to us about these obstacles, which can be removed through appropriate public policies.

“Geographical barriers refer to the lack of infrastructure in certain geographical areas. It’s about the rural-urban distinction that you find analyzed all the time in our barometers.(…) These barriers do not only refer to the rural-urban dichotomy, but also to cities: small towns versus big cities that are university centers. (…) There are counties that do not have certain infrastructure elements. These would be geographical barriers in particular. Of course, there are still financial barriers. Here we are referring to modest incomes, which make the purchase of a book prohibitive for other social categories, which we consider vulnerable groups, and young people from disadvantaged families are such a vulnerable group. And there are also cultural education barriers related to attitude and perception. They involve decoding the artistic message, and the attitude that people who have not been exposed to culture in childhood fail to form in their lifetime without direct intervention from cultural institutions.

The link between the level of education and cultural consumption has been obvious for a long time. The Cultural Consumption Barometer, the 2022 edition, also highlights the relationship between participation in cultural activities, civic involvement, and understanding of democratic mechanisms. Carmen Croitoru explains.

“The higher the values of cultural consumption, the more likely people are to be participants in a free society, to understand their rights, but also their obligations towards society. Belonging, identity, tolerance, trust, inclusion, civic concerns, and freedom are the topics about which the research team formulated some questions, and the answers are quite interesting, but mostly paradoxical and worrying. For example, when we talk about trust, we talk about the fact that there is a very low trust for the information passed through social networks, and yet, the percentage of people who follow social media is higher than for the rest of the things. People no longer trust what is said on television, on the radio, in newspapers and printed magazines, but these are some consequences of a certain kind of approach to the news. I return to this idea: culture also means respect for the citizen and for the citizen’s freedom and cultural rights. How much trust and what kind of horizon we are building for citizens can be seen very clearly from the barometer. We are talking about the current generation that is the result of ignoring the cultural act for over 20 or 25 years. Therefore, at the least, let’s start doing something for the next generations, for those who are young now, at least some of them, so they become a little more culturally active.

During the pandemic, the Cultural Consumption Barometer was replaced by studies on certain participation trends, in order to keep in touch with the changes in habits that people went through during this time.

Social enterprises, already active for several years in Romania, prove to be extremely useful regarding the social insertion of vulnerable people. For example, the Workshops Without Borders association, through its social enterprises, employs people for a limited time and on minimum wage. These are persons who have difficulty finding work elsewhere: homeless people, single mothers, but victims of domestic violence, former inmates, and people struggling to get rid of a particular addiction. Some of them also receive counseling and retraining courses to prepare them to re-enter the labor market and live independently.

But who are these people? A complex answer is also provided by Workshops Without Borders through a study conducted recently, and presented to us by Claudia Petrescu, a sociologist at the Quality of Life Research Institute.

“We looked a little bit at the education level of these people. I always refer to the level of education when I talk about the vulnerabilities they have. 28% of the total sample have secondary education at most. They are quite few in number, and uneducated, but many of them practically did not manage to finish secondary school. In terms of income, 39% of our total sample has salary income. That’s gratifying, but 25% of that income is from insertion businesses or protected units, which is quite a lot. Only 14% have wages from open market jobs, basically from other employers. 55% have no steady income or no income at all. If we look a little at the problems of these respondents, know that their main problem is the lack of work. 40% said this was the main problem. This is followed by health problems, 34%, and lack of housing, 13%. In fourth place are difficulties related to childcare. They are important because we have quite a few victims of violence. We have quite a few women who have nowhere to leave their children during an 8 hour job. Among those who declared that their main problem is the lack of a job, 22% have a secondary school education at the most. That’s why I said that the level of education of these people is important.

Another problem of vulnerable people is poor health. This is not about disabilities, because people with disabilities fall into another category, but often about chronic diseases. In this case, not only the chances of employment are reduced, but also the possibility of keeping a job, since their health may not allow sustained effort. That is why social enterprises make sure that these people manage to keep their jobs. Here is Claudia Petrescu.

“It’s extremely important to understand that it’s not just about giving them a job, but also those support services to keep them in that job. It is not very easy. There are people who had no education, people who somehow, through the social enterprises of insertion, managed to go to a vocational school and so on. These are not the only important things. The counseling part is extremely important in these insertion social enterprises. Those who have such insertion social enterprises know how many hours they allocate just to inform and advise these people. There are cases where today someone comes to work, but tomorrow they don’t, you don’t know why they don’t come, and you try to find them and find out where they are and what they need, so that you can keep them there at work. And this thing can last from a month of support to a year or two, until some of them can get employment on the open market.

And the free market needs labor, as other research by the Concordia Employers Confederation demonstrates. Radu Burnete, the executive director, elaborates.

“As many of us notice, although we are no longer a poor country, we sometimes look like one. And that’s rather the problem. But why should we say that Romania is a poor country? We are the tenth economy in Europe. We have surpassed economies like the Czech Republic, Finland, Portugal, Greece. Just ahead of us are Denmark and Austria. I’m not talking about the per capita income, but about Romania’s economy as a whole. We also have capital, including domestic capital. There is quite a lot of money in Romania, we also have foreign investments. So we have money, we have technology. In addition, we produce quite a lot of extraordinary things in Romania. But we have a people problem, in that we have too few people for this economic growth. If we were to stay on the current trajectory, we won’t get where we want because we don’t have enough people.

But what do the statistics say about this gap? Where, in fact, are those who could be active in the labor market? Many went abroad, but Radu Burnete offers another possible explanation.

“According to the National Institute of Statistics, in 2020-2021, in Romania there were about 12 million people able to work, between 15 and 64 years old. Of these 12 million people, about 8 million work. They are active people, they do something and get some kind of income. But we also have 4 million people who are completely absent from the labor market. They are between 15 and 64 years old. They could theoretically work, but they don’t. This means that the number of employed people in Romania is much lower than in the region. And I think this is a question that should concern us, because a part of these four million people are definitely vulnerable people.

Therefore, there is still much to be done to improve the situation of vulnerable people once they leave the social enterprises of insertion, if they even manage to get there.

Interest in drug use begins to manifest itself in Romania at younger and younger ages. In fact, at worryingly young ages, we learn from the latest annual report of the National Anti-Drug Agency (NAA), which shows that the youngest age declared by consumers was 13 years old. In fact, 10.7% of the population aged 15 to 64 have used an illicit drug at least once, while 6% have used drugs in the past year. According to the report, the most vulnerable to consumption are teenagers, and the most consumed drug in Romania is cannabis. Bucharest and Ilfov are, by far, the regions with the highest prevalence for consumption.

A really worrying factor is also the component of communicable infectious diseases from and to people who inject. We learn from the report that almost 21% of people admitted to rehab treatments are infected with HIV, almost 69% reported infections with the hepatitis C virus, and almost 8% with the hepatitis B virus. The report also notes, for example, that according to the information provided by the Matei Balș Institute of Infectious Diseases in Bucharest, more than 550 people were diagnosed with HIV/AIDS, of which 50 were people who inject drugs.

Consumers interest in recovery has also dropped dramatically: 50% of consumers sought the help of specialized institutions to get rid of this terrible addiction, that is, about 3,100 people – very little. They want to escape addiction to cannabis, opioids, and other new psychoactive substances.

Last year, according to the NAA, more than 1740 medical emergencies caused by drug use were registered – for cannabis (27.5% of cases), NPS (new psychoactive substances) (26.8% of cases) and other drugs: opiates (7%), cocaine (3.7%), stimulants other than cocaine (6.5%). The average age at which one dies in Romania due to drug use is 30 years. Regarding deaths caused by drug use, in 2022 there were 30 drug-related deaths, of which 25 were overdose deaths. In terms of good news in this troubling landscape, the number of drug-related deaths continues to decline.

The concern of the authorities (of the Ministry of Family, in this case) focuses on prevention activities, especially among children at vulnerable ages. Natalia Intotero, the Minister of Family, Youth and Equal Opportunities, believes that attracting childrens attention to more dynamic activities could be a method:

“Prevention is very important, and equally to offer children something else: camps, trips, entertainment to attract them from that area of seeking thrills. I would very much like to carry out support courses, including for employees in this field, training courses, and I believe here that through the National Employment Agency,with the support of European funds, we can carry out these courses”.

Ms. Intotero targets teenagers in high schools with the most access to drugs. The Minister of the Family announced that, together with the Cognitive-Behavioral Group Psychotherapy Association, she plans to soon implement an aggressive campaign to raise awareness of the risk of drug use in 20 cities in the country, but also in Bucharest, of course, on all communication channels. Intotero also announced the launch of an app:

“We propose an application that contains preventive measures regarding all aspects related to stopping the use of drugs and other substances harmful to health for minors, young people, and more. Also, we want this application to be a source of information from the relevant institutions, both among young people and among adults. More importantly — a source of awareness for parents and grandparents regarding the increase in consumption among young people, and ultimately what follows: deterioration of the well-being of the whole family and problems in the area of mental health.”

Anti-drug specialists in Romania carried out, last year, 20,000 activities to prevent drug consumption in schools, family and community, as well as targeted information, education, and awareness activities regarding the risks which alcohol and drugs consumers are exposed to, which benefited over 700,000 people: preschoolers, high schoolers, college students, teachers, parents, foster carers, institutionalized children, social assistance specialists, medical staff, users and former users of alcohol and drugs, and local communities, in general.

The President of Romania, Klaus Iohannis, convened the Supreme National Defense Council on October 12. The issue of drug use among young people and students was also included on the agenda, and was treated, for the first time, as a major risk to individual and national security. What did the SNDC decide? The establishment of an inter-institutional working group – made up of undersecretaries of state, representatives of the domestic intelligence service, prosecutors, and specialists – to prevent and combat the risks generated by the trafficking and consumption of prohibited substances by developing an action plan with objectives, measures, and responsibilities. Only about a month before, at the opening of the new school year, President Iohannis stated:

It is a problem that concerns our society more and more, and I am glad that there is an increased interest in trying to find solutions to combat this scourge. At the same time, I want to emphasize the importance of preventive and responsible behaviors. It is crucial that young generations understand from an early age the dangers and dramatic consequences of drug, alcohol, and tobacco use.

If, at the age of only 19, Vlad Pascu would have understood on time that drugs can destroy his life, maybe the tragedy that he caused in the summer, at the seaside, would not have happened! Two students were killed and three injured by the car he was driving under the influence of several prohibited substances, the event generating very strong emotions among Romanians. And this is only a drop from the sea of recent information regarding the extent of drug use in Romania. Therefore, there is talk of drafting a law to regulate the drug testing of students in schools. The modification of the Highway Code or the development of a register of persons who commit crimes in the field of drug trafficking are also being considered. In addition to increasing prison sentences in the case of incitement to consumption, the Ministry of the Interior proposes confiscation of cars in which drugs are discovered, or which are used in the trafficking of prohibited substances. The maximum number of positions of anti-drug prosecutors with the organized crime department (DIICOT) was supplemented.

Last but not least, a draft law submitted to the Chamber of Deputies proposes that the punishments for drug trafficking be only by compulsory prison sentences. Why? Minister of Justice Alina Gorghiu explains:

Until now, the legislation provided for punishment of either by a fine, or compulsory imprisonment, or with suspension. But, without looking away, or hiding the garbage under the rug, we must understand the following: that this change is absolutely necessary, taking into account the increase in the number of cases to be resolved that have as their object crimes in the sphere of illicit drug trafficking in the year 2023. To give you an example, this year, until the end of September, there were 22 thousand drug cases, compared to 18,000 in the same period last year. It is difficult to identify how many target traffickers and how many target consumption, because it is a complex topic. But I think it is very important to understand drug trafficking conditions and consumption. The more drug trafficking you have, the more consumption you’ll have. Therefore, to bring consumption down to a low number, you will need to find levers to decrease drug trafficking, whether we are talking about low risk or high risk drugs. What does the legislative proposal say? That the rigors of this law must be borne by the traffickers, in the sense that we will no longer have the suspension of the execution of the sentence for high-risk drug traffickers. They will be in prison, if a conviction is reached for drug trafficking.

Vlad Zaha, an expert in criminology, believes that the effort of state representatives is focused more on detecting and punishing millions of consumers. Therefore, are the proposals to strengthen the legislative framework intended to strike at the heart of the problem? Vlad Zaha’s answer is ʹnoʹ.

I think that Romania does not necessarily need more prosecutors or tougher laws, because we have among the toughest laws in the European Union. Instead, we have a very big problem of the effectiveness of the resources we already have. 80% of the work of a policeman or prosecutor is somehow focused on consumption, and not on trafficking. That’s the problem! It’s good that things move when a little public pressure is applied, we also see these last few weeks that all kinds of cannabis greenhouses are being discovered, more significant quantities are being discovered, but this is strictly, I think, due to public pressure, because in the last two years there has not been that much public pressure, and nothing has been discovered, to understand exactly what we mean. It is estimated that the size of the drug market in Romania is over 250 million euros per year.

The drug problem will not disappear in two months, not in five, not in one year, not in ten – the authorities are aware. As the fight is long-lasting and fierce, it is very important that the issue of prohibited substances be kept as high as possible on the public agenda. All the more so since, according to official statistics, 1 in 10 Romanians consumed drugs at least once. In the case of young people, the rate is almost 2 out of 10. And the age of a first-time consumer has come to be between 10 and 14 years.

While socio-economic discrepancies between Romanias regions have been a known reality for a long time, there is now talk about another gap, the one in education — which could be an effect of the first. For example, a recent study carried out by Newsweek magazine shows that, despite the fact that Romania is the -placed country at European level in terms of the number of medals that students have won, in 2022, at international school Olympiads, the results of the PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) tests place our country in second-to-last place in Europe.

Usually, based on the PISA results, the level of functional illiteracy is established, and in Romania over 40% of students up to 15 years old are affected by this phenomenon both in terms of the ability to understand a text and the ability to use scientific knowledge. Exactly this last problem, namely the teaching of sciences in the pre-university environment, was also the theme of some of the meetings held within the recently concluded Bucharest Science Festival. Various university professors and high school students discussed during several practical workshops. Among them was Cristina Todașcă, vice-dean at the Faculty of Chemical Engineering and Biotechnologies at the Polytechnic of Bucharest, who noticed a certain specificity of the recent generations of students who choose the faculties of the Polytechnic University.

“The experimental part is missing a lot before university. There arent that many experiments in physics or chemistry anymore. Therefore, understanding abstract concepts only by attending the course where things are written in chalk on the blackboard is not possible. If the emphasis were on the experimental part, especially from the first years of school, the notions would be more comprehensible to children. It would be much easier for them to understand certain concepts if they could see how it works. Children who are exposed to science regularly, even from elementary school, later end up learning mathematics, physics, computer science, and biology much more easily. All of this requires a certain amount of imagination to understand what is happening at the atomic level. And then, to understand what is happening there, you have to imagine, see the effects of the theories and understand the usefulness of the notions. Eventually, things will become much simpler and easier for them to understand.”

The need for practice or generalization of laboratory experiments in schools and high schools is a subject that is much talked about, but without any outcomes. Also, scientific practice should even be accompanied by philosophizing, for a better understanding of the mental processes that lead to the deepening of scientific knowledge. Philosophy and sciences can be taught together and obviously adapted to the age of the students, believes Emilian Mihailov, university lecturer at the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Bucharest, answering the question of when is the best time to start teaching philosophy and science.

“I think the question of when this type of education should begin is a very good one. The answer shows us how close philosophical education and scientific education are. They were originally the same thing. Scientific education was part of philosophical education. But why were they one? Why were they walking together? Because philosophy is born in the feeling of wonder. Science is also born in the feeling of wonder. That is why I believe that philosophical scientific education must take place in childhood. It is children who, par excellence, illustrate wonder. And this, I believe, should start in primary school. This means that we, in primary school, can cultivate those educational practices that explore peoples fascination, not memory. I am not saying that memory is not important, because it is extremely important, it is how the brain develops, that is, by memorizing information. But beyond memorization, lets explore what fascinates children.”

And children in Romania – like all children in the world – do not lack curiosity or imagination. Evidence of that is how they can excel in a discipline rarely taught in Romanian high schools: astronomy. The situation was observed and commented on by Cristian Chițu, director of GMV Romania, a company that works directly with the European Space Agency.

“I would start by saying that it is interesting how Romania manages to win medals at the international astronomy and astrophysics Olympiads, when there is no such subject taught in high school. It is done on a voluntary basis, in centers of the “student club” type, i.e. in dedicated centers where the teachers are dedicated to teaching these subjects. But even so we manage to perform and amaze. I for one am amazed, but I dont think there should be one compulsory subject in schools. Maybe there should be a common core of compulsory subject matters, but this one – whether we call it astronomy or astrophysics – I think it should be part of a so-called optional trunk, or optional branch, because the problem we have at the moment it is that we all leave school programmed according to the same subjects.”

But what about most of the students who are not particularly interested in astronomy or any science in particular, but who need some scientific knowledge when they grow up?

“You cannot force anybody to learn. This is a proven thing. Someone who doesnt want to learn a trade wont learn it. But maybe the problem isnt with the students who are perhaps disinterested, but the problem is with the rest of us who cant get those elementary or middle school students to be interested or at least ask some basic questions. For example, how many planets are there in the solar system? I am sure that if we ask this question, we will get various answers. After all, we live in an era where the earth is still believed by some to be flat.”

So, the need to combine theory with experiments, a certain method of meditating on scientific foundations, but also encouraging curiosity through play at a young age, could, over time, reduce the current gap between a record number of international Olympians and a large percentage of functional illiterates in the Romanian school. (MI)

A graduate of King’s College London, where he studied Political Science, and a graduate student in Public Policy at University College, also in the capital of Great Britain, Răzvan Petri is equally concerned with the civic and political involvement of young people in his native country. And this concern is motivated by the lack of interest shown in these matters by a good part of the generation to which he belongs to. Why? Răzvan Petri himself explains.

“I think there is some disinterest, but I don’t think it’s necessarily the fault of this generation, that is, young people or people who don’t get involved in politics and civic action. It is about very low trust in political leaders, in political institutions, and in state and European institutions in general. But this low confidence is caused more by those who should lead us and make decisions for us than by any special characteristic of today’s youth. They are as interested or disinterested as ever, but simply our opinion leaders, as well as political ones, and our institutions, do not know how to communicate with young people. Because of this, it is very difficult for them to be involved in politics and to be attracted by politicians.

And because interest awakens starting with information, Răzvan Petri, together with his friend, Vlad Adamescu, co-founded the civic initiative Politics to the Minute, which aims to make politics more accessible to young people. Carried out online and on social networks, this project tries to make up for the absence of civic education classes, taught only at the primary and secondary levels, not at the high school level. Here is Razvan Petri:

“We collect all the information we think they need, and present it through a few slides that we present on social networks in the most attractive, simple and easy to understand way. Basically, we translate what is happening from the political, legislative language into the language of everyday people, something that should have already been done by the people trying to communicate. (…) I think that if we started earlier, from school or high school, to explain to children what they need to know about the political system and how important democracy is, it would be easier to have a more involved and informed generation. (…) And more than that: if they did civic education and understood that, for example, the president cannot build highways by himself, that the prime minister is elected by Parliament, and that parliamentary elections are perhaps more important, or at least as important as the presidential ones, they would know better how the political system works and would not make the mistake of blaming someone who has nothing to do with a given situation.

Not all teenagers and young people are, however, disinterested in civics and politics. And those who want to get involved are attracted, above all, by matters very close to their world, Răzvan Petri notes.

“I would say that they are very interested in things that happen locally, in their communities and cities, because a lot of people would like to make the city or sometimes even the village where they live a better place. And then the fields of action would be local ones, relating to streets, parks, playgrounds, or even schools. And, of course, they are very interested in aspects related to students’ rights, the way the dynamic between teachers and students unfolds, and the observance of students’ rights. Many asked and wanted to know whether or not it makes sense to get involved in student councils and how to do it to better represent student interests.

For several years, however, a worrying trend has appeared among young people. For example, the extensive study carried out in 2019 by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation showed that, while the majority of young people in Romania believed that democracy is the only acceptable way of governing a country, 23% of them said that, under special conditions, they would take take into account a dictatorship too. And recently, another study, which this time did not include Romania, demonstrates that this preference is shared by a significant part of the young generation around the world. Open society barometer: Is democracy effective?, carried out between May and July 2023 in 30 countries, found that only 57% of young people between the ages of 18 and 36 believe that democracy is preferable to any other form of government, while at the same time 42% of them support a military regime. However, Răzvan Petri believes that the preference for autocracy in 2019, but also today, expressed by almost a quarter of young Romanians, must be carefully interpreted in relation to the Romanian context. Here is Razvan Petri again:

“Trust in democratic institutions is very low, and democracy now seems a little outdated, it seems that it is moving with difficulty, and that results are not really forthcoming. And, very importantly, this survey also contained information related to how the same politicians rotate through the same positions. It seems that no matter what we do, the same people are in power. Many people believe that no matter who comes to power, the results will always be the same. There is a need for a strong leader who does not necessarily follow these democratic rules that slow down the decision-making process, who pounds on the table and solves the people’s problems. Hence the appetite for political movements that propose an alternative system or an extreme reform of today’s political system, which, in the opinion of many, would lead to faster results, but not necessarily more legitimate or democratic. It is partly the fault of the party system in Romania, and the fact that it behaves like a cartel, in the sense that political parties validate themselves by the fact that they grant themselves a lot of money from the state, and by the fact that they do not allow other small parties to enter the system politically, through these very high electoral and bureaucratic barriers, such as the 200,000 signatures or the 5% electoral threshold. And so we see that only the same parties are in government, that nothing seems to change, that there is no real reform, and from there the appetite for something else, for something new, fast, efficient.“

Therefore, according to Răzvan Petri, it is not the inclination towards a certain extremist or autocratic ideology that would motivate the preference for the iron hand, but also the disappointment produced by the current inefficiency of the political system. Anyway, in 2024, an important electoral year in Romania, these hypotheses will be able to be tested or not.