Season Phenomena

In Romania, once every political regime changes, there are two traditional phenomena that fully affect the business environment.

The former means an almost total block of the economical activities, in anticipation of the classical political treatments. Cynically justified as "competence based changes", the phenomenon is practically reduced to "their people go out, our people come in", with the expected exceptions - that come certify the rule - represented by the wise guys who served everyone. In this period of time, in the public institutions and in the state societies, everyone is sort of standing. Everyone trembles at the near future and gossips about the changes, zapps the TV channel looking for live press conferences, looks for known people in high positions and ask themselves the natural question regarding the importance of obeying rules given by people that might disappear the next day. This way, a total vacuum of power and a clear rupture appears. There is a clear line between the new leaders and the executives that are still to be put away. These are things that generate flaws of the (already) bureaucratic mechanisms, delays of the documents’ fluxes and of the payments, in a word - chaos.

The second occurred phenomenon, once every new take over of the power, is the traditional harassment of the companies that pledged deals with the state. If they bought enterprises, or assets, or if they were suppliers or benefactors of the state enterprises, these people are being investigated by the police, by the Prosecutor’s Office and so on. Suddenly, based on the papers made in a hurry (with the support of the still sleepy secret services) by some "Robespierre" wannabes of the new political chiefs, the investigation and research authorities prove their competence and wish of cooperation. This way, from time to time, just so the people don’t forget about them, dusty files from the last four years are loudly taken out to light. Serious press conferences are organized, and the robbery made by the former leaders is strongly blamed together with their irresponsibility regarding the handling of the public money. Finally, the former business revelations, public people present in the classifications of the autochthonous billionaires, discover that their relationship with the state has been totally non-fundamental. Some reach the basement immediately (and they will get out of there after a minor period of meditation), others spend lots of millions on lawyers and watch the wind of change, and the fate’s favored are accepted in the extremely large ship of the fighters against corruption. After a short break, usually mixed with often trips to exotic countries, the born-survivors continue their capitalist mounted procession with socialist bases and means. Together with them, in their shadows actually, the young business offsets, unfairly kept away by the hostile former government, start to rise free. Suddenly pointed in the super league, the new-born businessmen get to successfully continue the deals of their predecessors who now watch them from behind bars. Their protectors get richer, the exceptions in the public acquisitions’ sector become rules, the state creditors exchange places in the statistics of the Public Finances Ministry. The conventional magazines change their subjects and the professional mistresses, and the billionaires’ classifications are devastated by the unprecedented ascensions of several new and vivid groups. There is only one thing getting away from the professional go-betweens though: in maximum 4 years time we’ll have elections again…