In March 2020, Ludovic Orban of the National Liberal Party (PNL) hilariously celebrated his anti-worker government reaching the “ripe age of three months”. The next day the government fell.
At the beginning of this summer, following the victory of the liberal right candidate, Nicușor Dan over the populist right figure, George Simion, in the presidential race, the coalition government led by Ilie Bolojan, the PNL (National Liberal Party)), and encompassing all the traditional/liberal bourgeois parties (PSD (Social Democratic Party), PNL (National Liberal Party), RMDSZ/UDMR (Democratic Union of Hungarians in Romania), USR (Union for the Salvation of Romania) was formed in an attempt to block the right-wing populists from government.
While the most conscious and militant workers rightfully saw the pro-austerity politics of the coalition as a threat, sections of the urban middle class, students, academics, etc., celebrated with a rather hopeful mood that the liberal big-tent government might deliver on its promise to solve the current budget crisis by “reducing wasteful spending”. Today, however, the question of whether or not the current government will reach the “ripe age of three months” is up for debate.
A wave of austerity
After Nicușor’s victory, the PSD joined the new austerity government, confirming that all of the Romanian ruling class, regardless of political colour, is ready for an open confrontation with the unions and the workers. The PSD tried to avoid this in the past.
The planned austerity is to be introduced in three packages, with the second one barely passing at the time of writing. With the introduction of the first package, the government has frozen almost all wages in the public sector, as well as pensions; cut the scholarship budget by 40% (including the scholarships for future teachers), increased the number of required teaching hours required for a teacher, merging more classrooms and schools in an attempt to understaff and overwork the teachers; raised excise tax for gas, alcohol, tobacco; removed a couple of benefits and bonuses, such as the dangerous working conditions for the non-medical healthcare workers; cut the allowance for mothers by 10%. And the list continues.
Starting from July 1st, the price cap for electrical energy that PSD introduced three years ago expired, leading to a 25% (in some cases even 50%) increase in prices.
As a response to these policies, the working class has seen a rise in the willingness to go forward with strikes. Over the summer there’s been a number of strikes in some trades, but the biggest action has yet to come on account of the education sector being on vacation over the summer. For this reason, the liberal education minister, Daniel David, has pushed for the education cuts during the last weeks of June, when both students and teachers were unable to properly protest.
If the first austerity pack made sure that the working class and youth would turn against the government, the second one saw a wave of reaction from some layers of the ruling class, as well. This is largely because of the cuts to the local administration level;, one of the six proposed areas that the bill aims to “reform”.
The most concerning for the working class is the healthcare “reform”, which ultimately aims to introduce an “productivity-based” funding system, which would give more money to the hospitals based on market rules. Considering roughly a half of the state healthcare funds go into subsidising private hospitals, basically giving “social assistance” to the rich instead of the workers, it’s clear that the introduction of market rules in the healthcare system serves as yet another step towards privatisation.
The few remaining state companies were also affected, with prime minister Bolojan vowing to list a number of them on the stock market over the next few months.
The other areas are aimed towards ANAF (National Agency of Fiscal Administration), and the judiciary, affecting the pensions of high-up state magistrates; a measure highly popular with layers of the middle and working class. This led to tensions between the government and the judiciary. The same process is happening with the police, given the government’s aim to reduce the number of police to save money.
This perfectly illustrates the character of Bolojan’s government, whose level of stubbornness and neoliberal ambitions are so great they step on the toes of institutions the bourgeoisie would need in the upcoming class battles.
The most controversial measure however, remains the local administration reform. Politicians from every party inside the ruling coalition have openly complained about this measure, which would put financial pressure onto town and village halls. They would have to fund any local investment project from their own budgets, and limit the number of employees a town hall can have by as much as 17%.
Despite this measure being especially unpopular with the so-called “social democrats” of the PSD, the biggest party and part of the coalition, Bolojan openly states that he thinks it goes far enough. This became the biggest faultline inside the coalition, mainly because it will affect a significant part of PSD’s voter base especially in the villages and smaller towns.
For almost the whole month of August, the PSD has boycotted the coalition discussions, only recently returning at the request of the president. The latter, Nicușor Dan, claims that the coalition “works well”, but he thinks its fall is a matter of “when” not “if”.
Initially reluctant to join the coalition, and with a huge layer of the lower strata of the party aiming to go into opposition, the PSD has seen the worst drop in their support. This is especially from disillusioned workers who reluctantly voted for the PSD in hope they will at least “dial down” the austerity measures.
With the acting president of the PSD, Sorin Grindeanu, more unpopular by the day, it’s only a matter of time until the camel’s back will break. It’s highly likely that a strike wave started in the education sector and extended to a number of other trades, possibly with the aid of students in solidarity, would be that last straw.
Discontent is already high, but it’s important to aim it in the right direction. The government’s remaining support is only due to the constant attempts to derail this anger.
Same old liberal illusions…
The Bolojan government started by promising the obnoxiously repeated vows to bring prosperity to everyone by taking money from the state. In typical post-soviet fashion this is presented as a “ruling class”, oppressing “the citizens” (including the rich), with incompetence and unnecessary spending on the luxury of its bureaucrats.
This rhetoric is far from new, and, as always, it hides nothing more than the most unhinged austerity measures.
In a country with an incredibly low taxation of the rich and corporations both national and multinational, the blame for the budget crisis is placed on the public sector workers, and the burden of getting out of it is placed on the working class, at large.
As shown in the 2023 education strikes, and the attempts of the unions to start a strike in the healthcare sector, the public sector suffers from a criminal underfunding, which is the main reason why the quality of public services is below satisfactory for a lot of people.
Contrary to what the PNL and the neoliberal USR have claimed for years, the wages in the public sector are notoriously low, leading to a shortage of young teachers. Healthcare is incredibly understaffed nationally.
This reality is however openly denied by the liberals, who merge this layer together with the biggest directors, magistrates and all manner of big bureaucrats of the bourgeois state apparatus, in what they call the “budgetaries”. This lie attempts to split the workers in two categories, and allows the liberals to pull off anti-worker legislation, claiming they are fighting against the “privileged” state sector.
This ignores reality in two major ways. First, it ignores the fact that only a tiny minority of those who work for the state enjoy obscenely high pensions, wages, etc., while the vast majority of teachers are paid less than the few teachers working for private schools, for example.
Secondly, this discourse, presented as “anti-privilege” , therefore ‘from below’, actually seeks to focus all of the rightful anger towards “the elite” on the capitalist state apparatus, while the capitalists themselves are spared such anger. This is clear from the way in which the bourgeois media reported the “Romanian Elon Musk”, the millionaire, Dragoș Anastasiu, joining the government as one of the vice-prime ministers. He was presented as a representative of the “civic society”, who wants to keep the state in check, rather than an unelected rich guy who tells Romanians he’ll rule the country “as if it were a private business”.
When he resigned following a corruption scandal, the “anti-corruption” NGO-s funded by western imperialism barely reported on it. Anastasiu tried to paint himself as a victim, who only bribed the tax officials to get rid of the supposed barriers the rich have in the way of pocketting even more profit. The same government attempted in late August to remove an absurdly low 1%wealth tax that they considered ”unjust”.
On the second of September, Bolojan also declared that, despite the budget crisis, they will keep the flat taxation model instead of introducing the (already limited) measure of progressive taxation. This makes it more than clear that, despite tapping into the popular discontent against those who have more than they need, they do so only to attack the social state.
… Now with a new right-wing populist twist
The politics of this supposed “anti-extremist” coalition do nothing but boost and legitimize the biggest “opposition” party, the right-wing populist AUR (Alliance for the Unification of Romanians). The majority of their voters, especially from lower income households, see them as “the new politicians”.
AUR’s rhetoric, and their „solutions” don’t stray far from those of USR and Nicușor Dan. George Simion, AUR’s president, promised to cut half a million public-service workers jobs if he would have won the elections. But for those bought by such a narrative, AUR has an increasingly higher legitimacy compared to the liberal right wing, because they are not the ones in a coalition with the PSD.
Paradoxically, the right wing populists are to present themselves now as opposed to austerity. Their criticism, however, stops at complaining about the rise in taxes, continuing the tradition of avoiding speaking about wages by any means, while still pretending to speak for the majority. This is very attractive for certain layers of the middle class. However, more and more working class people mayl continue to fall to these “sovereignist” illusions, especially due to the austerity measures that the liberals are pushing.
This is clearly seen from the way they claim the Romanian bourgeois are also victims of these measures. The rightful anger towards the multinational corporations is paired with a pro-business rhetoric and an incredible loyalty towards Trump, despite their symbolic jabs at the foreign imperialist capital.
However, because they’re the second biggest party in the parliament, any other majority government that might form without them is hard to see. And because their popularity has only grown due to the past few months, it’s pretty safe to say that early elections will be off the table unless the rest of the bourgeois parties don’t agree to that.
In late August, George Simion said his party would be ready to join a government ruled by Călin Georgescu, the “sovereignist” presidential candidate who won the first round in November last year, causing the liberal establishment to cancel the elections and postpone them for May. To many’s surprise, they suggested PSD as a coalition partner.
This position, despite it being unpopular with the AUR voter base, might be popular with a layer of the working class who sees such an unstable coalition as an alternative to the liberal status-quo. The PSD, however, has strongly rejected such a proposal.
While it’s not excluded to see a coalition between AUR and a liberal party who would want to use them to get into government, two things are clear. Firstly, AUR is moving towards a more mainstream position, seeking normalisation with the other parties until the next elections. Secondly, as the bourgeoisie will be more and more desperate for stability, any possible governing coalition that might form would be even more unstable than the last.
Some bourgeois politicians are already thinking of the prospect of a deep political crisis, with multiple months-spaning governments in a row, similar to the 2021-2025 crisis in Bulgaria.
The only way forward
While writing this article, the food price cap law (for essential food and utilities) is about to expire. While Bolojan and the right wing of the coalition, pressured by the retail lobby, said they refuse to renew the law, the PSD has announced they’ll “use every leverage” to renew it.
Similar to local administration reform, Bolojan has threatened to resign if he doesn’t get his way. In response the PSD has stated they’d leave the coalition if they don’t get their way. In the end, they choose to kick the can down the road by delaying the decision for a week. This will not solve anything and it shows the perspective for a collapse of the coalition is closer than ever.
To any striking teacher or education worker one thing is clear: the government needs to fall. However, a very valid question raised by some teachers we spoke with during the union protests and pickets was who do we replace them with.
At a first glance the question is not easy to answer, given shortcomings of some unions, due to the 1990s “post-communist” era, the disillusionment with the liberal status-quo and the rising electoral populist right that seeks to divide workers. However, a majority of the working class understands the strike action already taken place as a way forward.
The populist right is on the rise due in part to a certain class anger, with more and more people being critical of the grossly undertaxed huge international capital. Without a working class alternative this can be exploited by all sorts of political charlatans. The liberal politicians rely on this state of things to gain whatever popularity remains, fearmongering against AUR and Georgescu. This captures equally legitimate fears of the ”sovereignist” elements, whose backward political outlook can be seen in the Trumpist platform that many people fear could take power here as well.
However, the strikes show the way foward. The vast majority of people present at the union protests have a similar political outlook – guied by the interests of the working class. Everyone is demanding bigger wages, pensions and scholarships, which in turn should be paid from the pockets of the exploiter class. This class seeks to overwork and understaff every economic sector to save their profits from the global crisis their own system started.
The working class movement has the power to take this politics from the ‘fringes’ to be channelled to a mass party with socialist policies and challenging for power. During the COVID lockdowns, the establishment politicians called the working class essential, while the bosses and their state bureaucrats were completely unessential to the running of society.
The working class has power, it just needs to learn to use it!
For this reason, fighting diligently and continuously for stronger trade unions is essential. The fight against careerism, corruption and passiveness in unions is linked to the broader class struggle.
In the following years, the social crisis of capitalism will lead to working class struggle. But without organisation, these outbursts of energy can be sidelined by a conservative union bureaucracy, and attacked legislatively from the parliament or even worse.
A militant orientation by the unions, a continuous struggle to build and sharpen them as weapons of the working class movement, can overcome any setback from a failed individual strike.
A network of young trade union militants, armed with a socialist programme that can judge events further than the limited logic of capitalist institutions, can revive the unions. Strong unions seeking to take the struggle for workers’ rights further could form a new working class party.
Such a party would represent a genuine alternative to the capitalist system, fighting for the interest of the working class, such as lowering the cost of living, opposing militarism and all wars for resources, and standing for the empowering of the working class in all of its diversity.
This would show the way towards a new society and economy, based on the needs of the many, not the profit of a few. A socialist society, a planned economy, democratically ruled, planned and managed by the workers.