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Read all the texts written by Petrisor Peiu for Ziare.com
All right If the current crown crisis had changed anything in Romania, one of the public priorities would have been to restore the irrigation system. System that covered, in 1990, more than 3 million hectares and now theoretically serves less than half (1.4 million hectares), although, in practice, it does not irrigate more than 750,000 hectares (part of the 1.4 million hectares with access to irrigation they do not have secondary irrigation networks, and the water used costs a lot) (source: HERE).
Let’s see how ridiculous the situation is. Here is the map with the distribution of the richest natural agricultural land in Europe (as indicated by the 2019 European Agricultural Atlas):
Spain has the highest concentrations of naturally rich land, followed by France, Romania, Bulgaria, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Albania.
Would you say God put his hand on our heads! But let’s not rush and take a look at the price of agricultural land in Europe (same source – European Agricultural Atlas, HERE). We have the cheapest agricultural land in the European Union, cheaper than in Croatia, Bulgaria or Hungary. Come on, I understand that we are a poor country, but should even the cheapest land on the continent be here? Didn’t it have to do with the fact that we really don’t know what to do with this wonderful land we receive from God? Was it not related to the collapse of the irrigation system?
(click Photo:)
I think that the fact that Romanians are going to pick asparagus in Germany, instead of working in such rich soil in their own country, should not surprise us at all. And do you know why?
So, we have the sixth largest agricultural area in the Union, with 13 million hectares. We have and we will have the sixth largest allocation of European funds for the Common Agricultural Policy, with more than 20 billion euros:
(click Photo:)
But where does all that money go for subsidies? 84% of them reach the largest 20% of farms:
(click Photo:)
That is, exactly on the farms that employ the fewest people. For, dear readers, Romania ranks first in the EU in the proportion of those who work on farms with turnover of less than 8,000 euros / year. And then, how can Romanians not go to the asparagus in Germany, where two thirds of employees work on farms with a turnover of more than 100,000 euros / year? Is it too complicated to understand, gentlemen rulers? Well, why are Romanian farms so financially fragile? Simple, because 93% of them consume more than half of what they produce themselves:
(click Photo:)
And let me tell you something: our good land produces a lot of grain, but we don’t bother raising animals with those grains, but we sell them as cheaply as possible. For export, of course, this is the only way to “produce” the VAT refund. In terms of livestock, we are only ninth in the EU in the number of pigs (we import massive quantities of pig), tenth in cattle, third in sheep and third in goats. But the real money is made from beef and pork.
So, drawing the line, let’s conclude: we have not learned anything from this crisis, just as we have not learned anything in the last 30 years.
The coronavirus came and caught us out of stock of simple medical equipment (masks, gowns, disinfectants) and totally dependent on imports of simple but useful generic drugs. In the country that produces the most corn in the EU, there was an alcohol crisis in the market. We have a chronic shortage of an extremely cheap drug that supports half a million Romanians with hypothyroidism. The most valuable product in the world this year will be a vaccine and we killed the Cantacuzino Institute.
Nothing will be the same after the crisis? Why not decide, then, on an investment to restart the Cantacuzino Institute, instead of waiting seven years for a hypothetical European project on this subject? Why don’t we take seriously the expansion of drug production lines to existing factories? Why can’t we produce masks and other equipment at reasonable costs?
Do you think that the Romanian state has become better or more responsible after this crisis? However, this state managed to fine a poor old woman from a village who saw her pig escape the threshing floor, so that the same state could get rid of the informal ALDE party leader, Daniel Chitoiu, who he killed his old woman with his car. This state fined 500 lei to a teenager who went to look for a loaf of bread at a store located 100 meters from his block, but innocently withdrew the director of the hospital in Suceava, which is the cause of death of more than one hundred people..
Has anything really changed? I went back to the same adolescent lamentations related to the Hungarian conspiracies in Transylvania. But at the same time we pretend not to see the main problems in the relationship with Budapest and the UDMR: the Orban Viktor blockade of Romania’s access to the OECD, the conspiracy between the Hungarian gas companies and the Romanians who run the gas field, the fact that everything UDMR does provoke it is possible because we amended the Penal Code in 2006 and 2009, at the request and for the benefit of the UDMR itself. A-propos by the UDMR, under electoral thunder against the amendment of the Administrative Code proposed by the UDMR, I have not heard from any Romanian side about criticism of the proposal’s most challenging article, art. 120, which established special pensions for mayors, vice mayors, presidents and vice presidents of county councils, in the amount of 0.4 x number of months in office x monthly allocation. Let’s take an example: for a salary of 5,000 lei and a mandate of 84 months, we will have 168,000 lei. Friends, understand well: in the Senate, he approved, by vote, a project proposed by the UDMR, which would have led to special pensions of 168,000 lei / month for mayors and county council presidents. And do you want me to believe that something really important has changed?
Let me give you two more examples that show that nothing has changed, on the contrary, everything is exactly as bad as before. On May 4, 2020, the municipal bonds issued by the Bucharest City Council expired, in the amount of 555 million lei. Bonds traded on the Bucharest Stock Exchange. It was normal for the City Council to “transfer” the debt at maturity, that is, to issue new bonds to sell on the Stock Market. But surprisingly, the mayor decides to abandon normality and signs a loan agreement for the same amount with the EBRD. All good and beautiful, only the official communication reveals a little secret that, by the way, explains everything: the interest rate (source: HERE). Why isn’t it public? Simple, because it is much higher than before (3.68%). The consequence: if it were only 4% (but it is much higher), we are talking about 22 million lei per year, which are taken out of our pocket and that nobody announces. How, however, is it possible for a public institution, the Capital City Council, to make credit agreements with secret interests on public money? How stupid do we think we are? By the wayWhy don’t you take Nicusor Dan out the window once in a while to make sure he’s still alive?
Another proof of no change: The National Bank informs us that it finances the budget deficit, buying government securities. But be careful! BNR informs us that it will never tell us how much money it buys and what the costs are. (source: HERE). In other words, the NBR lends money to the government and will receive interest from it. That is, the state creates some new debts on its own and we don’t deserve to know how much money we are talking about. Normally, only the National Bank has belonged to a man for 30 years and famigliei It is extended.
So what about the fact that nothing will be the same? Can’t you laugh
A terrible crisis has arrived and Romania needs solutions to get out of the crisis. Instead of solutions, all politicians tell us unprecedented nonsense: Liberals keep it close to the “V” return (meaning they promise us that the steep drop from March 15 to May 15 will be followed by an equally steep increase May 15 (That is, on July 15 we will be as good as March 15) and PSD members say they will give free budget money to all voters, small, medium and large and on budget. One does not remember the investments we can make to grow the economy: roads, railroads, Black Sea gas extraction, gas power plants, petrochemical restoration, regional hospitals, irrigation.
Oh! Under the motto that “nothing will be the same as before”, we find that access to the “knowledge economy” and “digitization” will be made. It sounds good, it sounds futuristic, but it is a bit impossible to talk about the knowledge economy in a country where the money to cover the holes in health was “made” by moving a billion euros of European funds for water supply. What knowledge economy to do without running water? That is, will all the children who keep the bathroom in the back of the playground study only new technologies? Well, for the story tellers with pools in Monte Carlo, did you see the result of Romania in the Pisa tests? Do you really know how exams are done in Romania? Let’s be honest and admit that it is impossible to enter a good high school or enter Automation / Electronics / Medicine / Law without meditation. Does this provoke the knowledge economy? And digitization, another beautiful story: well, our rulers do not refrain from vitiating the auctions of medical masks and will they refrain from leading Ghita companies to digitize our country? Well, wasn’t Microsoft doing business with the purpose of digitizing?
One of the basic components of our economy is energy. In 2019, exports fell to 4 TWh, imports almost doubled to 5.5 TWh, and production fell to 56 TWh. (source: HERE). And we believe that it is good, that everything is going according to plan. Also, we sit and watch nonsense as the Iernut plant is not finished, the only state-initiated investment in a gas unit. I’m not saying that we long admired the maps with the unexploded gas tanks of the Black Sea. And you want me to believe that “nothing will be the same”?
Maybe we will be forced to walk for a few months equipped as Zorro or Yuri Gagarin, but that does not mean that we really change. Maybe Hunor Kelemen with a mask will scare us more like Darth Vader, but he will still request autonomy to receive positions, votes and resources, perhaps Ciolacu will hide his beard under the mask just when he hides his baccalaureate or university diploma, but he will stick to the Outlaws themselves, perhaps Ludovic Orban will wear a mask when negotiating the protection of Mihai Chirica and Robert Negoita, but dirty politics will continue to be called what he does. Finally, I hope that at least at the sixth wedding, Calin Popescu Tariceanu wears a mask and has Daniel Chitoiu as the driver of the bridal limousine. Maybe Klaus Iohannis will put on his mask when he tells us to stay calm at home every day, but in the end, we will also dream of picking asparagus, because the factories that are still closing here.
But something substantial, important, will not change. Everything will continue as before. The family of 2,000 politicians will not be touched by a single flower. They will continue to import expensive masks, collect special pensions, and direct the employment of their relatives in all well-paid budget positions. Coal-fired power plants will die well, gas will remain on the sea floor, we will buy electricity from the Hungarian nuclear power plant made with Russian money, our children will tan by picking asparagus in the German fields, once every five years we will helplessly admire a terrible drought, we will eat Polish pigs and mangoes instead of plums, three quarters of us will be real estate agents, the knowledge economy will bring triple the number of “Spiru Haret” students, and our hospitals will merge with museums, becoming living medical museums. And when we return to the traditional and lethal nosocomial infections, we will remember with nostalgia the mild virus of the crown.
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