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Argentine President Javier Milei’s Economic Reform: A Model Worth Considering
No. 54, Jul.-Aug. 2025 Before World War I, Argentina was one of the richest countries in the world, with a per capita income close to that of the United States. In the last half century, the country has been undermined by inflation, recession, and the ineffectiveness of state institutions. The cause is the economic policy pursued by Argentine governments in the post-war period. More
Did You Say Neoliberalism? The Dirigiste Theories of the Romanian Postcommunist Elite
No. 54, Jul.-Aug. 2025 Economically speaking, where did we start from within the political project shepherded by Ion Iliescu in 1990? I see that this project is called at the same time “Gorbachevite”, “neoliberal”, “shock therapist” even. Yet, rigor is needed here. My analysis is that at the decisive moment of 1990, before the fragmentation brought about by the 1991 reforms, at an intellectual level in power circles there was actually a split between market socialism and a strange neo-developmentalism grafted on social-democratic aspirations whose undercurrents neither Iliescu nor his allies understood very well, given the data of the problem in Romania in those years and the terrible isolation experienced in the 80s. The Neoliberal Consensus from Washington, not to mention shock therapy, had no supporters in the power apparatus until 1996. What was done in this regard was fragmentary and under the coercion applied by financiers (here the IMF) to the rulers of a state without access to capital. In the final socio-economic outcome – overall an extremely brutal one with millions of lives –, these economic paradigms mattered less than objective material and political factors, some inherited from the late stage of Ceausescu’s reign, others new. But in no case can we see in the dominant actors of this period simple projections of structural constraints. Some socialist countries gravitated towards the ideas that were the basis of European social democracies (Slovenia). Others went towards a kind of market socialism without the advantages of China (Belarus). Others gravitated towards liberalism, although some socially embedded it quite a lot, at least for a while (Visegrad) or did not bother to put in serious safety nets (the Baltics). More
Romania, Lowest Prices for Food and Non-Alcoholic Beverages in EU
No. 54, Jul.-Aug. 2025 Romania has the lowest prices for food and non-alcoholic beverages in EU, according to a study published by Eurostat. Romania’s prices were 24% below the average, followed by Slovakia (at 17% below the average) and Poland (-13%). The study was focused primarily on price levels for food, beverages and tobacco in 36 European countries. The country groups included in the analysis were the 27 European Union (EU) countries, 3 EFTA countries (Iceland, Norway and Switzerland) and 6 candidate countries (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia and Türkiye). More
The EU-US Trade Agreement, a Study in the Contrast between Politics and Reality
No. 54, Jul.-Aug. 2025 While few would compare Donald Trump to Mahatma Gandhi, a saying by the Indian leader applies to the US President: “first they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, and then you win.” The recently announced EU-US trade agreement represents a political triumph for Donald Trump and his political vision of recalibrating trade, economic, technological, and security relations with the rest of the world, including its most important allies. From the famous clip of German delegates laughing at Trump in 2017 when he warned them about their dependence on Russian gas to today’s “unequal treaty”, Trump has managed to prevail despite domestic and foreign opposition. The economic realities behind the agreement are uncertain, as is the implementation of its vague commitments. It may well be that US citizens will suffer the most from Trump’s campaign, but the way these negotiations were presented as conflict and aggression required the designation of a winner and a loser. The agreement is therefore a political disaster for Ursula von der Leyen and the “Geopolitical Commission” that was meant to transform the EU into a global power. Several European leaders, including Pres. Macron who wanted the most aggressive approach against the US, have denounced the agreement as a continuation of a “century of humiliations” for Europe similar to those suffered by colonized countries. The hyperbole takes on a life of its own and may lead to drastic political changes in the EU. The problem is not that the Europeans do not have skilled negotiators, but that their negotiating position was weak from the start after the EU’s economically lost generation (after the 2008 crisis) and after the effect of “perma-crises and poly-crises” (in the World Economic Forum’s formula). These include the sovereign debt crisis, the refugee crisis, the Covid pandemic, the invasion of Ukraine, the sanctions imposed on Russia and the failure of the EU’s political and economic system, in particular the drastic bet on combating climate change at the expense of energy security. From aspiring to equality with and surpassing the US, the EU has fallen far behind and its strategic and technological autonomy has regressed. More
The Curious Case of Techno-Reversion
No. 54, Jul.-Aug. 2025 I remember about two years ago, some viral videos from China presenting what was described as a major breakthrough in public transport: the trackless tram. However, it did not take long for terminally online to point out that these “smart trams” were essentially just trolleybuses. Since then, I started to notice this pattern more often, innovations that are in reality just repackaged ideas. More
The Asian Future of Europe?
No. 54, Jul.-Aug. 2025 “The light comes from the east” – a go-to byword spread in Eastern Europe in the dawn of the Communist rampage to come, hiding one of the most tragic optical illusions in history. However, the saying is, in fact, much older. “Ex oriente lux” marks the ultimate (“Eastern”) spiritual origin of our (“Western”) world: Indo>European populations, Greco>Roman syntheses, Judeo>Christian religions. All these, E>W. It would also be the other way around. “Ex occidente lex” shows us that the law and order of civilization flourished where an unmistakable chain reaction between various ideas and institutions occurred. The recipe, for Niall Ferguson, includes competition, science, private property, medicine, consumerism and the work ethic. This time, the arrow is W>E. While this explains the historical rise of the “West” over the “Rest”, it predicts a reversal of polarity too, amid Western degeneration under the cumulative burdens of intergenerational over-indebtedness, market over-regulation, legislation hypertrophy and civic atrophy. The “Rest” (Westernized or at least modernized) demands a reassessment of its share of participation within the production (and consumption) of “a better future”. With the East (aka Asia) at the forefront. More
The New International Economic Order
No. 54, Jul.-Aug. 2025 After the first 100 days of US President Donald Trump’s second term, which saw the most serious escalation of the US-China conflict and the greatest financial instability in recent history, some observations can be made about the changing international economic order. If the trends of this period continue, the rules-based world order will be replaced by one based on power relations. More
Markets and Robots
No. 54, Jul.-Aug. 2025 Robots have become an active part of our economic life. They are already present on the stock market where they act almost independently, buying and selling assets and resources although they are still following the requirements previously given by an entrepreneur who shoulders the risk for its actions. The development of sufficiently complex models that are able to predict and alter the conditions under which they operate will lead us, at some point, to question the role of man in the whole economic mechanism. More
Romania, Penultimate Spot in the EU for Labor Force Occupation Rate for People Over 50 Years Old
No. 54, Jul.-Aug. 2025 The data revealed by Eurostat showed that Croatia and Romania had the lowest employment rates among people aged 50-74, with less than 40% of individuals in this age group employed. Among the 60-74 age group, Luxembourg and Romania had the lowest employment rates, with less than 15% of people employed. More
The Limits of Complex Systems: The Power Outage in the Iberian Peninsula
No. 54, Jul.-Aug. 2025 On 28 April 2025, a power outage affected the entire Iberian Peninsula and border areas of France, as well as Andorra. Reports of outages in other countries turned out to be false or unrelated to the events in Spain and Portugal. The power outage affected all of the mainland parts of the two countries. The islands were not affected, as they had independent power grids. By the next day, power had been restored in almost all of the affected areas. Damage was estimated at 4.5 billion euros, but even more important in the long term is the erosion of confidence in the reliability of European critical infrastructure. Politically, there could be major consequences, including increased risks of populism, since the European Union has in recent years been moving strongly (and often self-defeatingly) towards decarbonizing energy production, electrifying important areas of the economy such as transport, and increasing the share of renewable energy in the European mix, under the auspices of the dual digital and green transitions (and, ironically, the Spanish Presidency of the EU Council was talking about the triple transition, including the social one). While it is too early to have definitive answers about the root causes of the incident, the blackout was a shock to Europe and perhaps a wake-up call about the weaknesses of a strongly ideological and political approach to pragmatic and technical realities. More
Energy Infrastructure Development in Romania and Bulgaria – A Strategic Necessity for the Energy Security of Central and South-Eastern Europe
No. 54, Jul.-Aug. 2025 In the extremely unstable geopolitical context of recent years, marked by armed conflicts, sabotage of energy infrastructure and the deliberate decoupling of Russian natural gas supplies to Europe, the need for a fundamental reconfiguration of the gas supply route becomes obvious and urgent. The suspension of Russian gas transit through Ukraine, the shutdown of the Yamal-Europe pipeline and the compromise of the Nord Stream pipelines have led to the collapse of the old traditional delivery routes, putting countries such as Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Serbia and Austria in difficulty. The only remaining functional route – TurkStream/Balkan Stream – crosses Bulgaria and has a limited capacity, which shows the vulnerability of the European energy system. In this tense context, the joint initiative of Greece, Bulgaria and Romania to create a “Vertical Gas Corridor” takes on vital strategic importance. This initiative, discussed since 2014 but reactivated in practice after the start of the war in Ukraine in 2022, proposes a complete reversal of the gas transport paradigm: instead of north to south, gas would flow from south to north – from the LNG ports and terminals in Greece, through Bulgaria and Romania, to Hungary, Slovakia, Moldova and Ukraine, and further to the rest of Central Europe. More
Governance Unboxed (for Dummies, not for Dumbs)
No. 54, Jul.-Aug. 2025 Mythology and, beg your pardon, the mythomania of governments – this being the case everywhere and since forever – maintain the idea that the solutions for the peace and prosperity of the polis somehow come “from above”: either from the heights of the skies (descending from the divinity and transmitted, through epiphanies, to the priests), or from the heights of the sciences (processed by gifted brains, organs that are in the custody of the scholars). Am I insinuating that this is not how things are?! To be honest, if I can’t really say anything useful about the first route, because my own heavenly revelation is still waiting to be experienced, about the second I can say that it is a huge hoax: an erroneous interpretation, which can degenerate into a… fraudulent one, of the area of sciences – economic and political ones alike. More
