ADVERTORIAL George Simion, president of AUR: “Romania has a problem. But the Romanians also have a solution” – 05/06/2024

Fewer ministries, fewer secretaries of state, fewer departments and budget officers: we are reducing the state apparatus by two-thirds.

The interest of the Romanian nation must represent the engine of all Romania’s external relations and our foreign policy strategies must be built on it. This statement can be found in the AUR governance program, recently launched last month in Bucharest. I strongly believe in it, especially now, after almost 4 years of fighting with a political class that simply does not understand the concept of “national interest”.

I knew even before entering politics that things were bad, after all we all grew up in Romania for the last 34 years. Politics has always been synonymous with nepotism, cronyism, theft and laziness.

I saw the news, I saw the corruption, I saw the callousness, what else could amaze me? I tell you: the lack of a vision for this country, for this continent, for everything.

Everyone seems to be working there at the Parliament. In Brussels, the offices of the MEPs are full of so-called specialists, analysts and special advisers who seem to understand how things work in a society, in a free economy. Everywhere you look, you would say that you are in the company of educated people, of political leaders who think about the future of the citizens they represent. Everything is rosy until you realize it’s all fake. Nobody knows anything anymore, everybody works like a solar panel in winter.

We have 200 secretaries of state at the moment in Romania. A record figure, since the Boc government. Do you know how much they earn monthly? Over 2,000 euros, for a hat. Four councillors, a ladder driver, housing from RAPPS and a large office of about 200 square meters. Many with other functions in the state, with other incomes, with other pensions. We also have secretaries of state “on duty”, regardless of field and expertise. Professional leaf cutters in an oversized administrative system filled to the brim with sinecures and mistresses. Dozens of ministers, hundreds of secretaries of state, hundreds of thousands of budget officers. How many do you think are really good at what they do? How many do you think would be qualified to run a department for real, not for money?

If we want to be well, we must first of all go for a nice walk, do some sports, start losing weight and get rid of the weight that we had accumulated during years of neglect. This means, of course, fewer ministries, fewer secretaries of state, fewer departments and budget officers.

We prioritize efficiency, and hierarchical advancement will be done strictly on meritocratic considerations. You deserve? Do you work? Then you will lead this department, and you will even be selected, and rewarded, to do performance courses for your colleagues in the country. This is how we do well in Romania, promoting values ​​and performance!

Through the country, the same! All town halls of localities under 5000 inhabitants, abolished!

Of course, many will consider this proposal as “radical”, but this is the only thing you can do to get rid of a structural problem: the cross-party mafia, the mafia that has taken over local town halls, creating a combined monstrosity that has literally subjugated the lives of Romanians. How else to get rid of mayors who have been grounded in their hometowns for 30 years, who win every election with the help of the party structure, and who almost managed to erase the Romanian village from the map?

In Brussels, I won’t say anymore! The Romanian MEPs have shamed us too much by their absenteeism, by their lack of reaction regarding matters particularly important for our country, by their obedient way of defending everyone’s interests, except Romania’s.

Whoever does not talk about these problems, or who pretends that these problems did not keep our country’s economy from developing in the same way as the rest of the economies in Europe for the last 34 years, either does not understand anything, or understands everything and is lying to your face. They deliberately fattened the public administration, the local administration, they deliberately created ministries upon ministries, positions to the left and to the right, they sent their arrows to Brussels, to reduce the citizen’s ability to develop. So that they can get their hands on what is good, while the Romanian was left to the fate of privatizations, economic crises, the pandemic and the cannons also given by them during the last decades.

If we want to get well, we must first accept that we have a problem.

I say that we have reached the point where we realize that we have a problem, and what the problem is. Will we do something to solve these things, to give Romania a new chance?

I say yes, I say that the Romanians are completely fed up with this joke! Will you? You are too sick of hearing the same things in every election campaign.

The only difference is that I have so far kept in check the hungry party apparatus which, as an independent body, has the reflex of perpetuation and only one goal: to parasitize the state.

I can do it from now on and cut unnecessary functions and institutions or… surely I’m the only one who will try!