Category: The Future Starts Today

The European Commission recently proposed to EU member states “ReArm Europe” – a five-point plan to rearm Europe, which could mobilize €800 billion over the next four years. Member states would also have more leeway in complying with the EU’s usually strict rules on debt and deficit when it comes to defense spending, as well as the possibility of reallocating regional development funds available for military investment. Here is the European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen:

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“We are living in the most important and dangerous times. I do not need to describe the serious nature of the threats we face. Or the devastating consequences we will have to bear if those threats were to happen. Because the question is no longer whether Europe’s security is threatened in a very real way. Or whether Europe should take more responsibility for its own security. Indeed, we have long known the answers to these questions. The real question before us is whether Europe is ready to act as decisively as the situation requires. And whether Europe is ready and able to act with the speed and ambition that are needed.”

In the various meetings in recent weeks, the response from European capitals has been as resounding as it is clear, Ursula von der Leyen has stated: ‘We are in an era of rearmament, and Europe is ready to massively increase its defense spending’. This is both to respond to the short-term urgency to act and to support Ukraine, but also to respond to the long-term need for Europe to assume much more responsibility for its own security. Ideas conveyed with determination, and subsequently, at the extraordinary summit in Brussels, an emergency meeting from which it became clear that Europe has entered a new era. What has Europe so alarmed now? Historian Adrian Cioroianu, a university professor and former Foreign Minister, believes that it is about the extent of the rift:

“Obviously, it is not only Donald Trump, long before him American presidents spoke about increasing participation, from George Bush Jr., then President Obama, in Donald Trump’s first term, even Joe Biden. It’s just that it was a suggestion that came, still, in a time of peace. Or we perceived it to be a time of peace. I mean, the world didn’t flinch even in 2008, when there were the Olympic Games, in the summer, and Russia entered Georgia, in those separatist provinces, the West wasn’t alarmed. We weren’t alarmed either in 2014, with Crimea. We weren’t alarmed in 2022 either, we were nervous for Ukraine, but not this feeling of alarm.”

The nervousness in Europe today, adds Adrian Cioroianu, derives from these almost two months “in which we realized not only that there are no people to limit Donald Trump, but those in his Administration seem to encourage him. I think this is where this feeling of European urgency came from. And the icing on the cake that put the lid on the whole story is this similarity of interpretation that comes to us from Washington and Moscow on certain issues. I don’t think this has any precedent, not even in Donald Trump’s first term, let alone with other American presidents”, says Professor Adrian Cioroianu.

One of the consequences of this behavior of the Trump Administration could be Europe’s awakening to the awareness of its own weight, he adds:

“An economic power, a demographic power, an intellectual power, but which was not covered by a military power. Europe had not thought about it in the last 70-80 years, it was not a priority, after 1990 it was more of a policy of assimilation of Central and Eastern Europe, although discussions had begun in the early 90s about a common security policy, but the integration of Central and Eastern Europe left security in the background.”

The plan of the President of the European Commission contains five financing instruments. The first refers to increasing national defense budgets by 1.5 percent at European level, which would mobilize about 650 billion euros in the next four years, expenses that will not be included in the calculation of the national budget deficit. A second instrument is loans for common European defense projects worth 150 billion euros. This is about spending better and investing together for pan-European capabilities, such as air defense, artillery systems, missiles, drones, but also in the cybersecurity field or military mobility. This instrument will help member states create demand for industry, and with this equipment we will also massively increase aid to Ukraine, says Ursula von der Leyen. The third instrument concerns the possibility for member states to use cohesion funds for defense projects, while the last two areas of action target private capital, in conjunction with loans from the European Investment Bank. “This is Europe’s moment and we must rise to it,” the head of the European executive stressed.

What we are experiencing now is the result of a totally changed information ecosystem – this is the assessment made by Prof. Alina Bârgăoanu, PhD, European expert in combating disinformation and member of the Advisory Board of the European Observatory for Digital Media. She provided an analysis on Radio Romania about informational and cognitive warfare, the dictatorship of emotions, and the manipulation of algorithms on social networks in order to falsify reality. I believe that any era is defined by the dominant means of communication, says the expert in combating disinformation, and the pace of changes in terms of communication is so great today that we feel overwhelmed, confused, anxious, because we are not prepared, we do not have a similar historical period that would have trained us for such a great pace of changes: “If we think about Romania, we are not very far, for example, from 1989, when we had only one TV program. There was a TV in the house and there were two hours when we watched TV, and that was just about all our exposure to mass media. After this period of informational austerity, there was that boom after 1989, with the explosion of the written press, after which radio stations started, then commercial television stations. It was already an informational space that was as much of a provider as possible. We didn’t settle down very much with 24/7 televisions and bombastic headlines written down, that blogs appeared, after which the online version of newspapers appeared, after which social media started to appear a little, which already greatly crowded the informational space. We hadn’t assimilate yet the experience of what Facebook was, that all kinds of platforms based on sound, on image appeared. Again, we didn’t get to get used this change that artificial intelligence appeared, Chat GPT appeared, these enormous possibilities for creating content appeared. So, if we take Romania alone, in 35 years we have gone from a two-hour television program to an informational oversaturation, a continuous bombardment of the most varied content possible.”

The whole of society is caught in this whirlpool, and the effect of new technologies and changes is felt at the level of all generations. For a long time now, we have not been talking about simple actions of distorting the truth, the facts, explains Alina Bârgăoanu, but we are talking about information warfare, political-informational warfare, or even cognitive warfare.

“At this moment, the information ecosystem has been transformed into a real weapon. Many times, digital platforms can be transformed into platforms from which to carry out actions to alter reality, to alter cognition, to install the dictatorship of emotions. The power of new communication tools to alter reality is indeed considerable. And because of this, the defense in terms of these weapons must be commensurate, that is, if we embrace this metaphor of information warfare, cognitive warfare, it means that you cannot leave people to defend themselves on their own.”

On the other hand, let’s not forget that social media have represented a real tool for emancipation, for overthrowing tyrannies, dictatorial governments, Alina Bârgăoanu points out. Meaning, right now there is a lot of dissatisfaction and a lot of frustration with social networks, but, she explains, ‘I think it would be a shame to associate them only with this dark side and to forget that, at least in the early days, they contributed to a real democratization of the public space’:

“They took over traditional media by storm, but sometimes rightly so, because traditional media were starting to represent closed spaces, and then they created this way of allowing new voices to appear in the public space. But now, really, you can see the dark side a lot, because they have also become very, very technological, and allow this distortion of the way we perceive the distribution of content. There are even companies that specialize in what is called ‘rent a digital cloud’, meaning they rent a digital crowd. If you want to have 1000 likes on your post, it means you pay x amount for the next likes. And these measurements, of what is called engagement, are processed by the human mind as an indication of popularity, and then as an indication of truth.”

This is because the popularity of information is interpreted by our brain as an indication of validation. Virality is one of the main weapons, and social media platforms create different speeds of content advancement, says Alina Bârgăoanu. And she explains: such cognitive attack campaigns can also be carried out with truths, a content that is viral does not mean that it is false, it can be something as factual as possible, but the distortion occurs from the fact that it benefits from an increased number of likes by manipulating algorithms, and that popularity is interpreted as an indication of truth. I think that the strength of artificial intelligence at this moment is related to the ability to distort the distribution of content, concludes Alina Bârgăoanu.

The shares of several major American companies, such as Nvidia, Microsoft, and Meta, collapsed in January after the Chinese company DeepSeek, involved in the development of artificial intelligence algorithms, questioned the “aura of invincibility” surrounding the US technology industry. Specifically, on the day that DeepSeek presented an AI model with performance comparable to those offered by Western chatbots, such as ChatGPT, but made at a much lower cost. Its low-cost model quickly became, shortly after its launch, the most downloaded free application in the Apple App Store in the United States, surpassing ChatGPT. It is the “Sputnik moment of AI”, estimated the Silicon Valley venture capitalist and Donald Trump advisor, Marc Andreessen, an allusion to the satellite launched by the Soviet Union in 1957, when the United States was surprised by the technological achievements of its rival. How valuable is the Chinese company’s achievement and what challenges does it bring? Florin Zeru, strategic communication specialist at SNSPA, said:

“I see the DeepSeek moment as a Pandora’s box. That is, wide accessibility, immense power and hidden risks. Imagine Pandora’s box from Greek mythology. But this time, instead of a physical box we have a computer program, a very powerful artificial intelligence model, full of vast knowledge and impressive abilities. But, just like in the myth, this box also comes with a warning. It is not just any box, but one that, once opened, releases both good and bad things into the world. And DeepSeek, by its open source nature, and its remarkable efficiency, makes this box accessible to almost anyone. And here is the big problem, here comes the parallel with the Pandora’s myth: once you have opened the box, you can’t go back. Once you have made such a powerful tool available to anyone, you no longer have total control over how it will be used. And, unfortunately, DeepSeek also has a weakness: it can be fooled. Through special instructions, called Jailbreak prompt, users can bypass the restrictions imposed by programmers and get answers that DeepSeek would normally refuse. And, let’s think about it this way, if in the hands of specialists DeepSeek can be used to accelerate scientific research, to create new drugs, to develop solutions to complex problems, in the hands of malicious people the same tool can be used to generate disinformation, to create malware, or even to plan attacks. It’s like giving every man on the street access to an extremely advanced technology without ensuring that they will use it responsibly.”

The production of the application cost about a thousand times less than what the big American artificial intelligence companies invest. How can DeepSeek afford to have such low prices? Because it is supported by the Chinese state, says Florin Zeru:

“It is a symbol of China’s ambitions to become a global leader in artificial intelligence. It is a signal that Beijing is investing heavily in this field and that it is determined to catch up with the United States. Until now, the United States has had a clear advantage in the field of AI, thanks to its companies, such as OpenAI, Google, Microsoft, but DeepSeek shows that this dominance is no longer guaranteed, and China is catching up strongly, and the gap is closing rapidly.”

DeepSeek’s success was also a surprise because it takes place under conditions in which the US, citing national security, has made efforts for years to restrict the sale of advanced AI chips to China. Concerns are also related to the fact that the data collected from users is stored on servers in China, under the control of two Chinese registered companies, something that DeepSeek confirmed. This concerns profile information, user requests, technical information, usage information, cookies, and payment information. What is at stake in this respect? Here is Flavia Durach, communications specialist:

“It’s not just about what we know about a specific person, but what we know about a specific internet user profile. Usually, we work with trends. Of course, you can spy on a person based on their internet activity. But from the perspective of competition, for example, between countries, like this discussion between the USA and China, I think it’s more about access to large data sets, which can be interpreted as statistics. And which, on the one hand, can help improve the quality of that company’s products and services. It can become better in relation to its competitors precisely because it has access to data that allows it to develop all kinds of adjacent services, already knowing what the public’s profile is, what it wants, what its behavior is. As for the fight between states, it can also be a problem of attempts at manipulation, influence, interference in elections when they can target the public, knowing their profile and behavior and preferences, with influence personalized messages.”

On a personal level, we can talk, says Flavia Durach, about hacking attempts, about theft of personal data, there are many ways in which you can do harm with data, depending, of course, on the context and circumstances.

2024 will remain the first year in recorded history in which the planet’s average temperatures exceeded the internationally agreed global warming limit of 1.5 degrees Celsius compared to the pre-industrial era, before humans began burning fossil fuels that emit CO2 on a large scale. The confirmation comes from the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service and should be seen as a wake-up call, because consistently exceeding this threshold for 10-20 years could make the difference between a habitable planet or not. 2024 was also the warmest year in history.

Mircea Duțu, PhD, president of the Ecological University of Bucharest, told us:

“Every month from January to June 2024 was warmer than the previous one, and a new record for average daily temperature was reached on July 22, 2024, with 17.16°C. Proof that climate disruption is relentless, the last ten years have all been the warmest on record. The main driver of overheating lies in the increasing concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, which reached 422 parts per million last year due to the use of fossil fuels. Therefore, the symbolic 1.5 degrees Celsius bar set by the Paris Agreement has been passed. With an average temperature of 15.1 degrees C, this means a difference of 1.6°C compared to the reference period 1850-1900, with the clarification, however, that the reference refers to a long-term trend. Such an average towards becoming stable should be observed over a period of at least 20 years.”

196 countries are signatories to the Paris Agreement, which also stipulates that countries must halve carbon emissions by 2030 to reach the 2050 target of zero. For now, the heat continued to contribute to the intensification of cyclones, heat waves and other extreme weather phenomena around the world. The heat claimed victims during the Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca in June, but also in Mexico, Thailand, India and Greece. Four million people in West and Central Africa needed humanitarian aid after historic floods, which resulted in more than 1,500 deaths, while Europe, especially Spain, also faced devastating floods. Major hurricanes hit the Caribbean region and typhoons caused havoc in Asia, especially in the Philippines. Drought severely affected large areas of the Americas, causing massive fires even in the Amazon rainforest. And in southern Africa, 26 million people are threatened with famine, according to the World Food Program. The leading scientific network in the field claims that almost all major natural disasters in 2024 were intensified by the consequences of greenhouse gas emissions produced by humanity. Temperatures were also intensified by the El Niño phenomenon, a climate pattern that brings higher temperatures and then gives way to its slightly cooler and wetter equivalent, La Niña. The consequences were not long in coming. Exceptionally high costs were recorded last year as a result of natural disasters aggravated by climate change. We are talking about $140 billion in damages.

Again, Mircea Duțu:

“The Earth is experiencing a fever that seems unstoppable and surprising in its consistency. After the extinction of El Niño in June and in anticipation of La Niña in the fall, a decrease in temperatures was predictable. But this did not happen and is not expected to happen under the expected evolution conditions. La Niña was late in intervening and, in any case, it is worth noting that we are on unknown ground. For millions of years, the planet has not recorded such an amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, so that for at least 2000 years the speed of climate warming has not been so rapid. The additional fever surge of two years ago is surprising. Even in a general context of climate warming, even after the passage of an intense El Niño, the temperature remains abnormally high.”

As the average global temperature increases, exceeding the 1.5°C threshold in a single year becomes a critical signal that indicates a future in which such values could be increasingly frequent. What is there to expect in 2025?

Professor Mircea Duțu continues:

“The answer will come mainly from the state of the planetary ocean. 2025 should be in the top 3 of the warmest years, undoubtedly cooler than 2023 and 2024. Last December, a decrease in sea surface temperature was already observed. In the following months, it will probably remain in neutral conditions, with minimal warm and cold anomalies in the equatorial Pacific.”

Beyond material losses, researchers estimate that, if dramatic and immediate measures are not taken to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, climate change could directly cause over 2.3 million additional heat-related deaths in 854 European cities by the end of the century.

The return of Republican Donald Trump to the White House for a second term has been eagerly awaited to bring clarifications on future American policy in cases with high geostrategic stakes. A policy that seems focused exclusively on national interests, under the slogan “Let’s make America great again”, as emerged from the very beginning of the speech given after the inauguration. In line with this orientation, Donald Trump has already signed several executive orders and directives. In addition to promises to combat inflation, he says that the country’s official policy will accept only two genders – male and female – and has resumed promises that the country’s security will take first place. He has restricted immigration of any kind, declared a state of emergency at the border with Mexico, also suppressing the right to asylum, and the right to automatically obtain citizenship for those born in the US to parents with illegal immigrant status. As for the economy, Donald Trump has announced a trade offensive by imposing customs duties on imports. He did not take immediate action to raise tariffs — a key campaign promise — but he did launch a review of trade partnerships and said he could impose 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico on February 1. He withdrew the United States from the World Health Organization and, again, from the Paris Agreement on climate change. He declared an energy emergency in the United States, and asked the Department of Energy to resume assessments for liquefied natural gas export permits. Were these measures expected? Here is Iulia Joja, assistant professor at Georgetown University:

“Trump says America First, Make America Great Again, even if that means additional costs for allies, in the short term, and, most importantly, for foreign policy and international security, in general. Additional costs for the United States in the long term, because withdrawing now will increase costs in the coming years. Trump doesn’t think like that, he thinks transactionally, in the short term, and then he is interested in the United States having as many advantages as possible during his term. But here too, from a commercial point of view, it is a complicated situation. Because, for example, these additional taxes, the tariffs that he wants to impose in the relationship with the EU, with China, with other actors actually mean higher costs for the buyer in the United States.”

In Europe, Donald Trump’s return to the White House is amplifying fears about the degradation of transatlantic relations. Will there be major differences in President Donald Trump’s approach to foreign policy towards Europe compared to the policy pursued by former US President Joe Biden? Guest on Radio Romania, the head of diplomacy in Bucharest, Emil Hurezeanu, explains: “It is possible that we will witness changes in perspective, but the geopolitical interests of the United States will not be able to ignore and will, in my opinion, continue to include, interests and values that are also shared by the traditional allies of the United States, which are the Europeans. We know that the centers of attention can be oriented in different directions. One of the most important interests of the United States is focused on the Pacific area, China. Then there are several steps, partly started, in relations with neighbors. (…) I believe that a geopolitical unit of the significance and importance, the gravity of the European Union, with so many members, with 400 million inhabitants, with a significant economic power, comparable only to that of the United States, will not be able to be ignored, regardless of possible changes.”

Regarding the war in Ukraine, which will soon enter its fourth year, Emil Hurezeanu emphasizes that its evolution is uncertain:

“We do not know what will happen with the evolution of the war in Ukraine. The United States, like the EU, have invested billions, the United States a little more than the European Union. But, beyond 150 billion each, 180 or so billions for the United States, it is an investment in its own interests, in fact. These are long-term interests, vital interests for the United States as well. Because a Russian victory could unexpectedly and negatively, very negatively and dangerously, reset the entire regional and global configuration. There are promises by President Trump, let’s see to what extent they can be fulfilled. There is a new advisor for that space, he is an expert with extraordinary experience in this field, with profound experience and who has always expressed himself in the sense of the traditional interests of Western allies. There is the American diplomatic apparatus that, regardless of changes at the top or in certain sectors, areas, retains its competence and power of influence, lucidity.”

In his inaugural speech, Donald Trump did not refer to any of the current security crises, such as the one in Ukraine or the Middle East, but he promised that his mandate would be that of a unifier and peacemaker. “We will measure our success not only by the battles we win, but also by the wars we end and, most importantly, by the wars we never enter,” Trump said. Except for the nomination in the context of the Panama Canal, which he says he wants back for Americans, the rivalry with China was not even mentioned in President Trump’s speech.

The war in Ukraine, the situation in the Middle East, Donald Trump’s return to the White House, elections in France, Germany and Poland – these are events that mark the path forward in the year 2025. A year in which the European Union, long convinced that a major war in Europe was never possible again, must continue to come up with adequate answers. Established as an entity to manage peace, the EU woke up in 2022 facing a harsh reality with the Russian Federation’s initiation of the conflict in Ukraine. A conflict that has already been going on for almost three years, and that is not known when and how will end. Europe’s shock was the shock of the continent, which understands that a major war is possible on its territory, says university professor Dan Dungaciu. What has Europe learned so far? Especially since the relationship, interaction, contacts, and economic connections produce peace, as the EU was established after the Second World War through the economic cooperation of France and Germany. It is also how the EU behaved later, when interconnection was producing peace and security, but everything the Union knew until today has gone down the drain, believes Professor Dungaciu.

“Connections no longer mean peace, economic relationships no longer lead to security. On the contrary, connections, connectivity, interactions can produce war. Hence the decoupling from the Russian Federation, later the decoupling from China, and so on. The great challenge of the European Union is that it must reinvent itself in its very substance. The second challenge, which is less visible, is that the EU, which was established as a post-national project – not necessarily anti-national, but post-national – is waking up today in a reality that is acutely national, through the war in Ukraine. Because Ukraine’s resistance to the aggression of the Russian Federation is, first and foremost, a national resistance. Ukraine is reinventing itself, finding itself, developing, and so on. So, here are two major challenges that the Union must manage, in one form or another. The extent to which it will manage them, obviously, will test the EU’s capacity to continue this project that began long ago, but which today is, perhaps, facing its greatest challenge.”

Towards the end of 2024, the war in Ukraine has in some ways entered a shadow area as a result of developments in the Middle East, including the fall of the Assad regime in Syria. A strategic political victory for Israel, believes university professor Dan Dungaciu.

“Basically, the fall of Syria today means a major disadvantage for the Iranian state, which sees itself as being deprived of the most important corridor through which it feeds its most powerful proxy, Hezbollah. So, what does this mean? This means that we will witness, from the moment the White House approaches this case, thought probably the first will be the Ukrainian one, we will witness a redrawing of the entire Middle East. Because what happened in Syria obviously will not stay in Syria. What will happen to this country itself, which was in many ways a quasi-artificial construction, remains to be seen, but it is clear that extremely important strategic emanations start from Syria. One that leads to Turkey, another that leads to Iran, another that leads to Israel and so on, and all of which will have to be managed in one form or another. They cannot do it from the inside. One way or another, the Trump administration will have to try to set a framework for future developments.”

Dan Dungaciu adds that we are facing an extremely complicated case, but one that we must ultimately follow in 2025. That is because it will be one of the most important, even if not very visible, major changes that are happening today in the Middle East, and which are unprecedented.

“It will be very interesting to see how the American administration of Donald Trump will try to approach the Middle East, being involved there, but not entering, not being militarily present in that region. Because, if Donald Trump fears anything at the beginning of his administration, it is being caught in a war, which would be the recipe for failure for Donald Trump, who has only one major project: to become the greatest American president, at least in the last hundred years.”

Returning to Europe, a great challenge remains the information and cyber war waged by Russia – a hybrid war, which fuels the extremist trends. In 2025, decisive elections will take place in Europe – in France, in Germany, presidential elections in Poland, all with major stakes, recalls Dan Dungaciu, who draws attention to the fact that the greatest security danger is the creation of a climate in which the propaganda of the Russian Federation takes hold and spreads. Not the propaganda itself, but the climate you establish in certain societies, insists university professor Dr. Dan Dungaciu – this was the great failure of the European mainstream, and he believes that from there we must start the reevaluation of the European public space, so that it is better protected against the obvious interference of the Russian Federation.

Many legends have been written about the emergence of wine, with the oldest evidence being recorded in the Caucasus, Mesopotamia and Egypt. Georgia is said to be the birthplace of wine, around 6000 BC, according to a study by experts from seven countries, for which scientists used carbon dating of ceramic fragments that were in contact with wine. Evidence has also been discovered in Iran, Greece and Sicily, but also some related to a wine made from fermented grapes mixed with other fruits in China, dating back more than 7000 years. Specialists say that at first the vine was “wild”, being domesticated later. And the oldest winery was discovered by archaeologists in a cave complex in Armenia. The site found here dates back to 4100 BC and contained a wine press, fermentation vessels, cups, and Vitis vinifera seeds. In addition to delighting us in the most unexpected ways, depending on its appearance, color, aroma or consistency, the wine in the glass tells the story of entire generations, of the formation of peoples and countries, as explained to Radio Romania by Cătălin Păduraru, PhD of the University of Agricultural Sciences and Veterinary Medicine Bucharest, president of the most important international wine competition in Central and South-Eastern Europe, Vinarium.

“It’s about a characteristic that the vine has, and which fundamentally changed the migration of great peoples. Grain plants are taken and stored, during migration the populations moved on, replanted them, waited for the first harvest, harvested them, consumed them, kept the seeds, and moved on. When these migrating populations from east to west passed through the Caucasus Basin and came across Vitis vinifera, and very soon arrived on the territory of today’s Romania and the Republic of Moldova and planted vines, they did not leave, because they could not do something without any meaning. They had to wait 4-5 years to enjoy the fruits of the vine. That is why I say that peoples and countries were formed around the vine. It completely changed the speed of the movement of peoples.”

In Romania, the cultivation of vines has a long tradition, historically attested, which certainly contributed to placing the country, nowadays, in the top of those with surface area cultivated with vines. Also, in terms of the quantities of wine produced – 13th place in the world and 6th place in Europe – wine is increasingly appreciated, both in the country and abroad. A look at the wine map reveals the existence of 8 regions in Romania – the Moldavian Hills, the Transylvanian Plateau, the Muntenia and Oltenia Hills, the Banat Hills, the Crișana and Maramureș Hills, the Danube Terraces, the Dobrogea Hills, respectively the sands and other less favorable areas in the south of the country. Each of these areas has its own particularities, specialists say – whether it is altitude, exposure, or sloping, for example, elements that leave their mark on the different ripening of the grapes. These differences are an asset for Romania as a wine-producing country, because these eco-climatic differences mean different varieties cultivated in certain areas and different periods of grape ripening. In other words, diversity. Again, Cătălin Păduraru, with another interpretation of the famous Latin adage in vino veritas, in wine lies the hidden truth:

“We did a unique experiment in the world, we managed to create the voice of wine, the sound fingerprint, and at some point we began to see that these voices are increasingly different. And we also came to a logical conclusion, I repeat it in the form in which I have said it every time, maybe at some point it will remain as such: if we trust that a piece of silicon, an electronic device, can record memory, why not have the belief that an organic type of matter can record information? Somehow, a wine that is a few years old, has witnessed some events, certainly has the information included, our only problem is that we still don’t know how to decipher it. This is what it means, in my vision, that the truth is in wine.”

Currently, in Romania, about 80 wineries practice wine tourism – most of them located in the southern part of the country, in Muntenia – and about a quarter of them also offer tourist accommodation. But Romania could make more of this important side of tourism, says Cătălin Păduraru.

“We designed, at the Wine Institute, where there is also Vinarium, a new type of tourism that is linked to a major project of the country, the A7 Motorway, which reaches Moldova and, from Iași, even the Republic of Moldova, which could be called the ‘Vineyard Motorway’. Because it passes through the most important vineyards in the country, through Dealul Mare, through Vrancea, and then through Moldavia. This does not mean that I minimize the importance of vineyards in the rest of the country. A new type of tourism can be developed, caravan tourism. You cannot build dozens of hotels in wineries overnight. Setting up spaces for camping and caravans can be done, and overnight all you need is water and electricity. And we can have, on this highway, a lot of foreigners who consume this type of tourism.”

Suddenly, the wineries could fill up, says Cătălin Păduraru.

The European Union’s net greenhouse gas emissions are now 37% below 1990 levels, while the GDP grew by 68% over the same period, demonstrating the continued decoupling of emissions from economic growth, policymakers say in Brussels. At the same time, the 2024 Interim Report on Climate Action, published by the European Commission, shows that in 2023 the Union’s emissions decreased by 8.3% compared to the previous year – a record, being the largest annual decrease in recent decades, except for the year 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic led to reductions in greenhouse gas emissions of 9.8%, states a press release from the Community executive. All these figures show that the Union – a pioneer in the clean energy transition, and currently responsible for 6% of global greenhouse gas emissions – remains on track to meet its commitment to reduce emissions with greenhouse effect by at least 55% by 2030. The data are encouraging – globally, last year a record level of green energy entered the system, including a renewable energy capacity of over 560 gigawatts, announced the International Agency for Energy. However, clean energy generation is not keeping pace with increasing global electricity demand, warns the agency, which also notes that in recent weeks, geopolitical uncertainties have kept prices volatile, highlighting the vulnerability of Europe’s supply. In all this context, Romania can consider that it has a privileged position – it benefits from rich energy resources, including in the Black Sea, and the offshore resources of natural gas and wind energy can contribute to its transformation into a regional energy hub, a pillar of energy security in the region. With a production of 2.3 billion cubic meters of gas in the second quarter, Romania, dethroning the Netherlands, became the largest gas producer in the European Union. Here is George-Sergiu Niculescu, president of the National Energy Regulatory Authority:

“First of all, this could not happen without a sustained investment effort by the companies that produce natural gas in Romania, because we all know that natural gas fields register a natural decline in production every year; as you exploit a deposit for a longer time, it empties, and the natural gas remaining in the deposit is harder to bring to the surface. But Romgaz, the Romanian state company, made a commitment and, through an effort supported by investments, managed to initially maintain the production of natural gas, that is, to practically reduce the natural decline through investments, and at the moment succeeded through investments to increase the production of natural gas. We must not forget that from 2022, from June, we have an additional billion cubic meters entering the national transport system through the investment of the Black Sea Oil&Gas company, which extracts gas from the Black Sea.”

What advantages can this leading position at the European level bring to Romania? Again, George-Sergiu Niculescu, president of the National Energy Regulatory Authority:

“What do these things mean for us? First and foremost, the position of regional leader, most importantly, the largest producer of natural gas at the EU level gives you the opportunity for your energy policies, which you make at the level of Romania, to influence the region. Your voice is much stronger among the decision-makers in Brussels and then our needs, the needs of the Romanian economy, the needs of domestic consumers in Romania can be better satisfied by these policies by positioning Romania’s resources, especially the natural gas we are talking about, as a fuel that is accessible and is as present as possible at the level of domestic consumers.”

A European Commission report recently showed that the Union’s dependence on Russian gas dropped from 45% in 2021 to only 15% in 2023, that is, Europe now receives about 12 billion cubic meters per year of Russian gas, while some 2-3 years ago it received 155 billion cubic meters of gas per year from Russia. And the downward trend of this dependence continues. The President of NERA:

“I have seen how toxic this concubinage relationship is, or was, between natural gas from the Russian Federation and European economies. This thing must give us food for thought, we must learn from recent history, and Romania has the chance to be 100% independent from any kind of imported natural gas. In 2027, I am sure that we will have natural gas extracted from the Neptune Deep field entering the national transportation system.”

Romania has interconnection capacities with all its neighbors, totaling 3,300 MW of export capacity and 2,900 of import capacity, says George-Sergiu Niculescu – but, in order for the energy to circulate without any kind of obstacle, from the cheapest source of production to the place of consumption, would mean that all the states in the region do their job as well as Romania did.