ADVERTISING George Simion, AUR president: “About truth and life. Or how to stop lying to ourselves endlessly: if we don’t cut the Gordian knot, we disappear as a nation! Cut social benefits for anyone who can work!” – 09.05.2024

It is an essential condition to create here, in the country, an attractive space for Romanians who have gone abroad. We have to bring them back, not us to go after them there!

Our problems did not start now, nor did they start yesterday.

Romania was administered in a deficit way for 34 years by a political class that was not interested in performing at the country level. Performance means work, while they just wanted a quick profit and a clean exit.

We’ve been walking on the stumps for far too long without realizing it. Of course, the European funds also helped us, no one denies this. But they also made us believe that we are doing really well, that the country’s economy is fine, that those beautiful numbers on paper really reflect the situation in Romania.

But, I tell you, from the position of a man, a politician who took the country in stride hundreds of times in the last 4 years, only in the last months I went through all the counties of the country even two or three times in a row, that the reality it is cruel. That the Romanians in the country are suffering, while the GDP stands at 5-6%. That there are many localities in Romania where our grandparents were literally forgotten, both by the authorities and by their own people. Nobody talks about these people either in Bucharest or in Brussels. It doesn’t look good on paper, probably.

A lucid analysis of the economic realities in Romania can only be based on the sincere desire to find out the truth.

As long as you do not want to see these things, to see Romania as it is not in the Capital, in Cluj, in Timisoara, then you cannot even come up with a real solution for all the social inequities, for the special pensions, for all the aberrations that it has been happening for 34 years in this country.

You cannot be proud of having economic growth when more than half of the country’s economy is concentrated in the big cities. You cannot boast of a solid economy when you have more than 6 million souls who have gone abroad, Romanians capable of working, smart, who could make performance and money here. You cannot lie to the population endlessly by importing cheap labor from the third world whose sole purpose is to fill the gaps left by the departure of our brothers and sisters abroad.

You cannot pretend that the pension disaster is not already on the horizon, and you have a negative demographic increase from year to year. Have we all really gone crazy?

Either we wake up now and do something about it, or we resign ourselves and wait to see what the hell will come out of this whole mess. I tell you honestly, from all the rational analyzes I’ve seen, with all the economic experts I’ve talked to, such as Mr. Cătălin Ghinăraru, only one thing stands out: we have at most 4-5 years left to reverse this negative trend, for to put the country’s economy back on a good footing, to implement a first line of carefully thought-out policies, aimed at increasing the demographic growth in Romania.

I know, I talk a lot about demographics, about the fact that we don’t have many children. It is certainly also due to the fact that I recently became a father. But we are talking about something as serious as possible, a phenomenon that everyone understands as well as possible, but which no one wants to address, ever. Well, I say that the time has come to talk very seriously about pro-life policies, about laws that would encourage and support young people to found a family here in the country, not abroad, as is happening now.

We already see such policies working in other European countries. Tax exemptions for families, preferential loans granted to young married people, even programs like those implemented in Italy of the type – a house for 1 euro -, in which they try to attract young people to the rural area, to the abandoned villages of our grandparents, which lie now in total oblivion, abandoned.

Such measures, taken immediately after entering the government, complemented by a set of laws to encourage and simplify the entrepreneurial environment, such as the one proposed by the AUR in our government program, which aims, among other things, to reduce the taxation of labor and companies and the increase of the gross minimum wage, could stimulate a new entrepreneurial class in Romania.

Imagine, for a second, hundreds, thousands of young Romanian couples back in the country, moved to the picturesque villages of our childhood, opening gastro-tourism businesses in the area, supported by the state, ready to revive the essence of the Romanian nation: the village. Did you imagine? Tens of thousands came to open patisseries, boutiques, restaurants or bars and left after a maximum of a year, chased away by the tax authorities.

It’s a lie to say you bring them back in one measure. State harassment must be eliminated and controls limited to a maximum of one per year. Vocational and dual education should be encouraged and the higher education oriented towards the labor market. Diplomatic representations must promote a unique platform where all companies publish their available jobs. Industrial parks closer to the countryside, transport hubs to ensure interoperability and speed.

One of the most important things, which must be done even at the risk of ending the political future of the one who makes the decision: social benefits for anyone who can work and has two hands and two legs must be cut. This will harm the political cabal and the mayors elected in a single round, but it is the first sign that in Romania work is appreciated, not overtaxed and discouraged.

We must focus on such projects in the coming years. It is an essential condition to create here, in the country, an attractive space for Romanians who have gone abroad. We have to bring them back, not us to go after them there!

Diaspora at home, a pro-life policy, a revival of entrepreneurship in the country, supporting the rural environment and keeping the Romanian village alive: these are our priorities, for which we will fight to the end.

How do I know we can? Because nothing stands in our way except the parasitic system that has captured the state. I do NOT owe them anything!