Mi-am dorit foarte mult să adun la un loc toate articolele publicate de presa străină în ultimele câteva săptămâni la adresa României. După atâtea campanii nereușite de brand de țară, Eterna și fascinanta Românie în sfârșit a ajuns pe buzelor tuturor. Iată cum:

The Daily Beast: „What happens when the population turns against the populists? Just such a drama is playing out in Romania, a country of 20 million people where hundreds of thousands have poured into the streets in the biggest mass protests since the end of communism.”

CNN: „At 9 p.m., protesters turned on their cell phone lights and pointed them at the sky, creating a sea of bright pinpoints. They sang the national anthem and later went silent for five minutes in memory of the heroes of the 1989 revolution that overthrew Communist leader Nicolae Ceaușescu.”

Солидарност с протестиращите в Румъния! Solidarity with protesting Romania!  – „If Romania takes a step backward in the fight against corruption, it would be a very bad sign for Bulgaria. In recent years, the success of Romania is one of the few hopes that the rule of law can function for all.

Not surprisingly, supporters of the status quo in Bulgaria shudder every time I mention justice in Romania. This is why it’s so important that Romanian people succeed and prove that what they had won in recent years is irreversible.

Come to support Romanians living in Sofia who organized a demonstration in solidarity with the civil unrest in their homeland. The demonstration is peaceful, wear Bulgarian, Romanian and EU flags and posters in Bulgarian, Romanian or English.”

lemonde.fr:

euronews: „Experts say Romanians are angry because they see the changes as representing a U-turn on the country’s corruption reforms.”

Financial Times: „By rooting out corruption even at local levels, the DNA hit the powerful party machine of the centre-left PSD, which returned to power in December. The measures that were passed by the government looked like payback to local barons and cronies for helping to ensure that victory.”

theguardian.com: „The European commission vice-president, Frans Timmermans, urged the government to “urgently reconsider”, saying that Romania’s EU funding could be at risk.”

usatoday.com: „Between 2014 and 2016, the DNA prosecuted 1,171 people and 34 organizations and companies for abuse of office, with losses due to corruption estimated at more than $1 billion. The agency is working on another 2,151 cases.

Romania is ranked No. 48 on Transparency International’s 2016 corruption gauge, above Cuba but below Jordan. The United States is No. 19 on the index.

For the young in Romania, this fight is about their future.”

aljazeera.com: „It has gone, the amendments are history, but the protesters are still not trusting the prime minister,” Al Jazeera’s David Chater, reporting from the capital, Bucharest, said.

Washington Post: „At a time when democracy is eroding in several nations in Central and Eastern Europe, an encouraging countermovement has suddenly erupted in Romania, a formerly Communist nation of 20 million on the Black Sea.”

nytimes.com: “I think Romania is now beyond the point where it can revert to a dictatorship,” said Manuel Costescu, a member of Parliament for the Union to Save Romania, a party formed last year to combat corruption and increase government transparency. Too many people are willing to take to the streets to protect their rights, he said, and to influence their friends and colleagues.”

444.hu: Un protestatar din Ungaria a strigat „Să vină românii”

Le Monde: „Liviu Dragnea, fața corupției românești”

nbcnews.com: „This fight is different than 1989 — no bullets, no casualties. It’s a moral fight. But it’s almost as important. That fight was… with death and suffering. This is a fight for hope.”

aljazeera.com: „The demonstrations show that citizen power can check abuses by the powerful. In a world where our tolerance for such abuse seems to be increasing by the day, that’s an extraordinarily hopeful development.”

euronews.com: „In any case, the magnitude of the protests will certainly consolidate the “street’s” role as a visible and influential actor in future politics, as well as help to mobilize certain segments of Romanian society that have for a long time been politically passive.”

eurasiadiary.com: „Romania is a country that is searching for peaceful revolution in good governance and is addressing inequality and poverty while in the EU club and under NATO’s security umbrella.”

politico.eu: „This protest movement — the first major pro-EU and pro-Western upheaval in post-Brexit Europe, and without doubt the largest in Romania’s history — did not appear out of the blue. It has a great deal in common with previous rebellions, in 2012, 2013 and 2015. It is a reassertion of civic courage that is not driven by political parties but is instead an unabashed expression of civil society in action.

Nevertheless, while the link to the “lost treasure,” to borrow Hannah Arendt’s phrase, of Romania’s 1989 revolution is obvious, we are dealing with something new.”

The New York Times oferă versiune în limba română pentru investigația sa despre corupția din România: „Corupția este o problemă endemică în toată Europa de Est. Însă lupta României împotriva ei a plasat-o în centrul dezbaterii politice. Ordonanța de urgență ar fi decriminalizat unele fapte de corupție, ceea ce a alarmat judecătorii și procurorii români. La Bruxelles, Comisia Europeană și-a exprimat îngrijorarea și numeroși oameni din interiorul și din afara României se temeau că această ordonanță ar putea submina statul de drept dintr-una din cele mai tinere democrații europene.”

NyTimes.com: „the turnout on Sunday was a strong signal that the government may have miscalculated”

theguardian.com: „Social anger can be expressed more or less directly or through the medium of an imposing cultural frame. In Romania, where the struggle against corruption has been at the forefront of public life for some time, the anger has been vented directly against corrupt and scheming politicians. In Hungary and Poland (or Britain, France, the Netherlands and the US), it has been channelled through populist frames skilfully promoted by demagogues. This is much more dangerous for democracy.”

salon.com: „The protest movement has scared the government, but it has not won yet. Should protestors go home, the bad old ways may return. Yet if in the public spaces of Romania a new political system forms, it will do the country a great deal of good and be the only bit of good news to come from the European Union in a long while. Here’s hoping for the latter.”

The Economist: „The long-term impact of the protests is uncertain. Many of those who marched last week had helped bring down the government in 2015, only to watch some of the same faces return to power just over a year later. Other proposals to lighten punishments or shorten sentences remain under discussion. The government insists they are aimed at relieving overcrowded prisons, but many Romanians think they are excuses to let corrupt officials go free.”

Globo: „Mais de 15 mil pessoas foram às ruas de Bucareste e outras cidades da Romênia no domingo.”

lemonde.fr: „A Bucarest, la révolte ne faiblit pas. Mobilisés grâce aux réseaux sociaux, les jeunes Roumains crient et brandissent des slogans drôles et incisifs contre le gouvernement.”

După cum scrisese Cristi Badea (mai jos), Liviu Dragnea chiar are meritele lui.

Apoi:

Constantin Vica: ca pe vremuri, când la gimnastică eram pe 1, 2 și 3, iar americanii mai jos.

Și mai nou avem proteste anti-corupție și în Albania („Un exemplu de curaj popular din partea cetatenilor romani. Pe 18 februarie ne vom uni la Tirana”), Paris („Nu suntem singurii care ne facem auziti, Romania ofera un exemplu redutabil, in acest moment”) și Malta. Iată cum, împotriva voinței lui, Dragnea chiar ne-a făcut un bine, nouă și altora ca noi. Acum să vedem cine #rezistă mai bine.