Cristian Pîrvulescu on the crisis in Romania's civil society

The economic and financial crisis has not only hurt Romanian companies but has also limited civil society's room for manoeuvre, writes political expert Cristian Pîrvulescu in the daily România Liberă: "Because it was seen as a result of market mechanisms democracy has been left in the hands of the economy. However the rather naïve notion that the economy can remove all historical inequalities has been negated by the social reality of the present. The social and economic gaps have grown larger with the implementation of the neoliberal social model. ... The political inequalities are increasingly apparent and are generating a frustration which is leading to extremist and racist discourse. Under these conditions civilian society, unable to adjust, is paralysed. Civil society could escape its plight, made worse by the crisis, by promoting social dialogue as a means of reconciling conflicting interests."

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