Approximately once every two years, the issue of administrative-territorial organization reappears in the public space. The unification of districts into regions usually spreads, the latter bring together the jurisdiction of appeal courts (see diagram). The reason may be that the counties are outdated: too many, too small and unbalanced, some overpopulated, others without industry, etc. After all, counties would be an administrative waste, and their union would reduce both the number of county budget workers and the amount of control, expertise, etc. that complicate Romanian society.

Each of the main political parties at some point engaged in territorial reorganization, and no one proposed to fundamentally defend the existing ordinance. There was also no particular need for a theoretical discussion, since administrative reform always dies before being born. All parties benefit from fattening the state to reward their supporters with constituency offices, so the efficiency of constituency organizational schemes and political poverty are therefore not in the way. At the same time, as budget labor contracts are armored and protected by unions, mass layoffs will hit the courts and strike the streets. As a result and by inertia, the history of administrative and territorial reform in Romania is a series of abortions.

Thank you, God! I repeat: it’s good that I stayed with the pusher of the counties! In what follows, for the first time, I will defend political principles that are easily discernible in neighboring countries, status quoterritorial and administrative from Romania. In this case, we are talking about two blessings that come with constituencies: the absence of regional oligarchs and the absence of regionalist, autonomist or separatist movements. Let’s take them one at a time.

Post-December Romania has never had regional oligarchs at the level of their counterparts in Ukraine or post-Soviet Russia. The autochthonous term itself (“local baron”) suggests a medieval lord or castellan, not a large landowner or duke. Our barons were no more stupid, and our country had no shortage of easy-to-grab industrial enterprises. Rather, Dragnia could not become Yanukovych, because the former head of the SPD lacked regions, i.e. regionUkrainian Both local barons and regional oligarchs in the former USSR accumulated their wealth and political influence by forming political-administrative-business networks while seizing local businesses and key positions in subnational administrations. Even in Romania, the capture of several counties proved impossible: I don’t know of any local baron who managed to swallow two county councils, let alone the town halls of two county seats. It is not for nothing that several Romanian oligarchs developed exclusively in Bucharest, where the centralization of ministries and some industries (for example, the media sector) contributed to richer and stronger client networks. Finding themselves confined to their counties, local barons allied themselves either with each other or with central oligarchs, but these alliances proved too unstable to perpetuate long-term regional (or at least county) dominance. Dragne almost succeeded in using the center to perpetuate his local empire, and his failure was closely related to the fact that it’s hard to herd a herd of stubborn goats, even if you’re the smartest goat.

This brake on the accumulation of regional powers is not a historical accident. The current poviats date back to the administrative reform of the keusists of 1968, when the regions imposed by the Soviets were abandoned and the option of interwar poviats returned. Or Ceausescu initiated the reform precisely in order to strengthen his power in the state. The re-introduction of poviats allowed both the removal of regional party leaders (the true satraps, who had a source of regional and personal power that could be used against Ceausescu) and the opportunity for the prime minister to appoint his own people to lead the poviats. , providing a client base of lieutenants who, with reduced salaries, were unlikely to rebel. In short, Carmachiu’s territorial-administrative legacy works exactly as it was intended, and thanks to it, Romania has known no regional oligarchs, only county barons.

The second ace up the sleeves of the counties is the weakness of popular regionalist movements. Romanian regionalism is felt through dialects, stereotypes and localized ethnic and/or religious minorities (e.g. Tatars in Dobrudja, Adventists in Bihor) rather than through autonomist ambitions. The issue of administrative-territorial sequoia was introduced by the Soviets through the Hungarian Autonomous Region and closed to Ceausescu, dividing it into two or three counties. But this perennial bone of contention between the UDMR (which claims a region that includes both Harghita and Covasna) and the rest of the Romanian political class is only one of the possible autonomist or separatist poles. Regionalist movements could flourish in several administrative-historical regions. The historical regions of Dobruja, Banat, Crisana and Bukovina will perfectly coincide with the administrative boundaries proposed by the respective appeal courts, and the Craiova appellate region will almost become the new Olten County. In the 90s there was no shortage of politicians ready to capitalize on any social divide, and there will always be the possibility of a Miorite Matteo Salvini.

It is useful to review other European countries. It may be unlikely (and let’s hope not) that our country will be affected by armed conflicts, as in the former Yugoslavia, the Republic of Moldova, Northern Ireland or the Basque Country. A peaceful movement for independence (for example, Catalonia, Scotland, Flanders or the former Czechoslovakia) is easier to conceive. Even more likely would be regionalism, through which all national politics passes: the Italian split between north and south, the exceptionalism of Bavaria, or the Franco-German split in Switzerland. Potential Romanian regions share all the characteristics identified in the examples above: a past with independence from Bucharest, ethno-religious tensions, and an international context that favors a weakening of the center over the regions, either through Russian intervention or European regionalization policies. Proponents of regionalization claim that the state should be closer to the people. Of course, yes, but the creation of new regions risks creating regional tensions that opportunistic politicians can gradually speculate on, and the effects of which will only be felt in two or three generations. At the moment, the archipelago of relatively insignificant counties reduces the regionalist-autonomist-separatist potential of Romania. Ask the average citizen of Spain (including Catalonia) or Italy how much they have benefited from political regionalism in their country and you will see how many political problems we have avoided in Romania without a second thought.

Instead of ending, let’s thank God for Nicolae Ceausescu. In his megalomania, he established a territorial administrative system, which then, in the post-December context, probably saved us from regional oligarchies and movements with separatist tendencies, which have a habit of supporting each other, symbiotically, as can be seen in Transnistria or in Donbass. . It is also written in the Bible that “you planned evil against me, but God turned them for good.” Read the full article and comment on Contributors.ro