How do we escape from the "ad-hoc tyranny"?

We are going through a perfect storm. Romania is today in a moment of maximum vulnerability, caught in an economic "quagmire": On one hand, we are hit by a chronic internal crisis – a fiscal-budgetary derailment and a cost of financing that turns us into champions of risk in the region. On the other hand, if we are still looking for some sort of safety net in the external environment, it is increasingly certain that we will not find it there. The world around us is a source of instability, with flagship European economies gasping and a fragmented geopolitical context that is rewriting the rules of global trade.

And Romania's main problem is not the lack of money, but the precarious quality of public money management and the national economy. The Romanian state is trapped in a sterile confrontation between the parties of a coalition that is here-today-gone-tomorrow. The energy that should be dedicated to crisis management is consumed in negotiations for political survival. Instead of coherent public policies, we have a succession of "firefighting" measures, meant to extinguish momentary fires, but which fuel, in the long term, inflation and distrust. I strongly believe that, at this inflection point, Romania does not need spectacular solutions or messianic promises thrown from television screens. The solution is, paradoxically, much simpler, but much harder to accept for a political class accustomed to improvisation: we need the therapy of normality.

We must free ourselves from the tyranny of the ad-hoc. Public policies can no longer be the result of momentary intuitions or group interests. In any self-respecting state, a decision with economic impact is based on real, transparent, and, above all, credible impact studies. Without this solid analytical foundation, any attempt at reform remains a simple vulnerability in the face of markets and investors. The lack of grounding is, in fact, the most expensive form of incompetence.

Then, we need to fundamentally redefine the relationship between the state and the business environment. The time of formal "consultations," where entrepreneurs are invited only to validate already made decisions, must come to an end. The dialogue must move to the stage of co-creation. The private sector is the one bearing the brunt of the crisis and it is also the one that holds practical solutions. If meetings between decision-makers and investors do not produce concrete changes in the regulatory act, then they are just image exercises that erode the little relevance left of social dialogue.

Last but not least, looking towards the future architecture of the Government, it is imperative to introduce real competition among ministers. Ministries can no longer be political fiefdoms, but must become performance units. It is time to talk about clear and measurable performance indicators (KPIs): reducing bureaucracy through certain figures, attracting foreign high-tech investments, and real administrative efficiency.

And those who do not meet the targets should leave, regardless of how "difficult" their political nation is. If we do not move from political noise to administrative rigor, the external crisis will find us without defense, and the internal one will devour our future reserves.