Romania is regarded as the fifth-most corrupt country in the European Union as of 2016, and enforcement and prevention of corruption has generally been weak. As of the beginning of 2017, however, Romanians have had enough. While there have been numerous notable protests in recent years, the protests against the Grindeanu Cabinet and some of the measures they have attempted to enact in their first weeks in office have led to street protests of a scale unseen since the fall of communist leader Nicolae Ceausescu in 1989.
Initial protests began as soon as the Grindeanu government was sworn into office, yet the protests reached truly historic levels when the administration passed a decree to decriminalize corruption involving sums of less than 200,000 lei (£38,000). Not only would this decree have demonstrated a massive step back in Romania’s long and hard-fought anti-corruption battle, the administration elected to put through the legislation in the middle of the night on the Jan. 31. Such blatantly subversive action, completely ignoring the role of Parliament in enacting this legislation, led to around half a million Romanians protesting against the government.
The legislation was scrapped in response to the protests, yet the prime minister Sorin Grindeanu has refused to respond to the continued protests calling for the resignation of the current administration. Despite the scrapping of the evidently somewhat pro-corruption legislation, the government still plans to pass a separate decree freeing around 2,500 prisoners with sentences of five years or less.
Corruption has long been an incredibly prevalent issue in Romania, and these attempts by the current government to let off many of their own party from their convictions resulting from a major anti-corruption drive in Romania of recent years. One such beneficiary, had the legislation come to pass, would have been Liviu Dragnea, who helped the current government win their election victory in December with around 46% of the vote. He is currently on trial for alleged abuse of power, and is barred from serving in government due to a conviction for voter fraud.
The fact that the current government is supported by, and likely in power because of, such corrupt individuals and actions, is the reason for the anger many Romanians feel. The country – the second poorest in the E.U. – has suffered due to corruption for long enough, and this step backwards in the fight against corruption is too much for Romanians to bear. Romanian president Klaus Iohannis has supported anti-corruption action for years, and participated in the protest himself, attempting to instigate a referendum on the controversial legislation. He was accused by the Grindeanu administration of attempting to enact a coup against the democratically elected government.
While numbers have dwindled since the legislation was scrapped, protests have continued, with the 12th of February marking the 13th continuous day of protest, with 50,000 to 70,000 people still protesting in Bucharest. The Grindeanu government is learning that it cannot get away with passing legislation in the middle of the night, or turning back the clock to the days when corruption was just accepted by the people. While it looks unlikely that the Grindeanu government will resign, it has awoken in the Romanian people a sense of their own power in protesting, and has warned Grindeanu and his cabinet that they will not be able to easily get away turning back the progress made in Romania against corruption in recent years.
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