Home Diplomatic Pouch The World and the COVID-19 pandemic. Romania in the Global Geopolitical Context

The World and the COVID-19 pandemic. Romania in the Global Geopolitical Context

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a Few Things on ”The Great Reset” and ”The Social Distancing”

Motto: “Whatever happens in your life is the result of two facts: something that you have done or you haven’t” – Albert Einstein

By Corneliu Pivariu

The Great Reset

There’s a lot of talk lately about The Great Reset[1]. In fact, the idea is not new. At the 2012 World Economic Forum meeting (WEF), the stakeholders considered ”The Great Transformation” as a solution to the current global challenges. At the 2016 meeting of the same forum there was talk of ”The Fourth Industrial Revolution”[2]. In 2019, the WEF meeting was titled “Globalisation 4.0 – Modelling the new global architecture in the era of the Fourth Industrial Revolution”. Actually, the  Hungarian-American economist Karl Polanyi suggested much earlier (in 1944) a re-thinking of the economy he called then “The Great Transformation”, whereby the market economy and the nation-state were understood not as two distinct elements but as a whole Polanyi named ”the market society”.

It is worth mentioning that 2019 marked an expansion of the WEF network for the Fourth Industrial Revolution, created in 2017 when more than 100 governments and businesses joined, including 5 members of G7 and some international organizations[3].

Recently, The Valdai Discussion Club published an evocative infograph concerning COVID-19 and the Fourth Industrial Revolution[4] (see below).

Without being impressed by the formulations of the WEF documents, many of which can be considered staggering, we find out, as Naomi Klein[5] says, that the initiatives of the Davos Forum wish to create a plausible impression that the big winners of the world economic system “are on the point of willingly leaving the greed aside and start seriously solving the boiling crises that are radically destabilizing our world. That is not at all the case and statistics abundantly prove the contrary. Even at the WEF meeting of 2016, different interventions mentioned that the poor and rich divide in the world is more and more obvious and that the said inequality increased by 47% during the last five years. In 2016, 1% of the world population owned 99% of the world wealth. The latest data shows that the world billionaires’ wealth reached at 31 December 2020, 11.95 trillion $ (increasing by 3.9 trillion$ between 18 March and 31 December only). The wealth of the first 10 billionaires of the world increased in 2020 by  540 billion $[6].

As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2021 meeting of the WEF was held online during four days. The stated purpose was rebuilding trust and buiulding principles, policies and partnerships for 2021. The event attracted as usual the participation of certain heads of states and governments, prominent international business leaders, leaders of civil society and global media.

A in-person Special Annual Meeting is scheduled between 25-28 May in Singapore. According to Klaus Schwab’s statement, “The Special Annual Meeting 2021 will be a place for leaders from business, the governments and civil society to meet in person from the start of the global pandemic. Public-private cooperation is needed more than ever to rebuild trust and address the fault lines that emerged in 2020.” Ahead of The Global Technology Governance Summit, a meeting scheduled to find ways for using the emerging technologies in the framework of a public-private collaboration will be held in Tokyo from 6-7 April 2021. The WEF will return to Davos for the 2022 Annual Meeting.

The Great Reset has three components:

  • a fairer market in accordance with a stakeholders economy, at all social levels;

 –    investments driven by common objectives such as ”equality and sustainability”, according to a new system, more resilient – for instance green infrastructure and industries with better track records of their social and environmental impact;

–     the public good should be supported by addressing the social and public health problems based on harnessing the technological innovations of the fourth industrial revolution.

The scenario of ”The Great Reset” in brief[7]:

  • perpetual and economically controlled pandemic lockdowns until the population gives in the medical tyranny;
  • medical passports and monitoring the interpersonal contacts as part and parcel of day-to-day life[8];
  • censorship of all voices opposing the agenda;
  • a slowed down economic activity on behalf of reversing the ”climate change”;
  • impoverishment  and the loss of private property;
  • setting up ”the universal basic income” for a generation of dependent and desperate persons;
  • a cashless society and a digital monetary system where the confidentiality of all transactions is completely removed;
  • creating a ”common economy” where  nobody will own anything (apart from the ”elites”) and the independent production is banned;
  • removal of the national borders and the end of sovereignty and self-determination;
  • the global political power will be centralized in the hands of the ”elite”.


Yet on the WEF site it is said that the situation associated with COVID-19 should not have as a legacy ”a tragedy” only but, ”on the contrary, the pandemic represents a rare and narrow window of opportunity for reflecting, reimagining and resetting our world so that we create a fairer, more prosperous and more just future”.

An important conclusion drawn at January 2021 WEF meeting is that a key element of the situation is to restore public trust “which was eroded by the perception that the Corona virus pandemic was wrongly addressed”.

Angela Merkel’s speech at the WEF was interesting too and we noticed for this article that the pandemic ”showed us our global connections or addictions” and identified ”the lack of digitalisation in our society” as a weak point as well as the necessity to act for ”the climate neutrality by 2050”  as the EU was already committed to. I noticed that the German leader raised the issue of The Great Reset: ”Do we really need this Great Reset?”, she questioned and added that ”isn’t it rather obvious that we need less a new start in establishing the objectives but we need to be more resolute in our actions?”

WEF leadership have presented for some time their ideas and proposals as implacable ones which have to be implemented and that was what Klaus Schwab tried this time too to induce to the audience by insisting on the sentence presented in his latest work ”Stakeholders Capitalism”and declared he was ”amazed by the ideological resistance it aroused”. The issue needs a broader approach but we confine ourselves to quoting Wall Street Journal which commented on: ”… on the sentence that the business leaders make a better world pursuing social objectives additional to the profit we would expect a discussion about the most important counter argument – namely that the business leaders could worsen the world…stakeholders capitalism can be in the end a more profitable version of the classical capitalism – because people are fooled and the field is washed”.

The President of the European Commission spoke at Davos about the need to regulate Big Tech and said: “The business model the online social platforms use has had an impact not only on the free and fair competition but also on our democracies, on the security and the quality of information. This is why limiting the huge power of the big digital companies is needed. We want that the values we cherish in the offline world be observed online too. … We cannot accept that decisions with major impact on our democracy be made on a computer software”. ”A body of rules based on our values – human rights, pluralism, inclusion and privacy protection is needed”, Ursula von de Leyen added.

Important speeches were delivered by the Chinese President Xi Jinping[9] and by the Russian leader Vladimir Putin[10]. Reading between the lines outlines indeed the specific interests of each of them.

The COVID-10 pandemic is in full swing and at the date of issuing this material one year has passed since the pandemic was declared and a few months from the start of the vaccination campaign.

The UN General Secretary Antonio Guterres declared on 17 February 2021[11], in a UN virtual meeting that the purpose of the vaccination for the entire world population is ”the greatest moral test towards the global community” and emphasized that anyone, anywhere should be included in the vaccination process. ”So far, the vaccination process was wildly unequal and unjust as 10 countries administered 75% of the whole COVID-19 vaccine. At the same time, more than 130 countries did not receive even a single dose”, the UN Secretary General said. On 26 February the UN Security Council adopted a resolution calling for equity as far as the access to vaccines against COVID-19 pandemic is concerned, a resolution  reflecting in a way a certain return to unity of the international community[12]. Let us not deceive ourselves as there is a great distance from words to deeds and the international community did not demonstrate yet the needed maturity for completely and efficiently implementing such a provision.

There is enough lack of confidence concerning the very evolution of the globalisation process and there are voices saying that one cannot arrive at The Great Reset with ”the same old globalists”. Plutocracy indeed will play a part of the first magnitute in the process trying to control and limit the power of states, something that seems easily attainable considering the rather precarious condition of the leaders of the present world political class.

A new multipolar world order consensually agreed upon is for sure preferable to a world war waged for the globalisation of any way of life and some would equate that with admitting defeat without fight.

But what would be the possibilities and the guarantees of durability of such an understanding, indeed if the idea is accepted? At a certain moment the world could become again bi or unipolar. It is quite impossible to establish a durable equilibrium in between the hubris of the great powers, especially when plutocracy is putting the pedal to the metal of global changes.

It all looks more and more like an ongoing  planetary takeover. The power axis is the leadership in Beijing and a handful of ultrarich American families  (who eventually emerged as Big Pharma and Big Tech leaders too). It seems we are witnessing a full-blown war, except fot its classical component (which would be more costly and would suppose a loss of life many a states cannot afford on the background of nowadays demographical evolutions). It is wished that this war culminate with a Final Solution – which I do not want to name – something impossible without a massive crime against humanity.

Social Distancing[13]

We witnessed and still witness the misuse in many occasions of this term[14], especially in the media as a result of the provision concerning the observance of a physical distance among persons for preventing the spread of SARS-COV2. You are tempted to ask yourself whether the misuse of these words is not intentional as it is the case with other usages, an interesting topic which is not the intention of this approach.

Fact is that social distancing has become more evident in 2020, when the world billionaires enjoyed a spectacular growth of their wealth, as it can be seen:

In September 2020, Jeff Bezos could have given to all his 876,000 employees a bonus of 105,000 $ and he remained as rich as before the WHO’s declaring the pandemic.

Timid steps were made in 2018 and 2019 for eradicating poverty globally (it diminished by 1.2% and 1.5%, respectively), yet in 2020 poverty increased by 7.1% so the progress registered previously was reversed and the poverty deepened.

According to data published by the World Bank in September 2020, climate changes is another factor that will contribute to poverty increase globally by bringing between 68 and 132 million people into the poor ranks.

At first sight we could say this is a reason why The Green Deal is needed. Definitely, but what about the billionaires who are so worried about the planet’s status and the situation of the people living on Earth? The billionaires are some of the most important polluters as they own multiple polluting sources such as yachts and other means of transportation (planes, helicopters, cars).

At the same time, world’s billionaires made consistent donations for fighting  Covid-19: Mackenzie Scott (Jeff Bezos’ former wife) donated at the end of 2020 4 billion $ to a support fund for fighting the pandemic; Twitter co-founder  Jack Dorsey donated 1 billion $ for the same cause; Bill and Melinda Gates granted 1.75 billion $ in response to Covid-19 pandemic and for the development and delivery of test kits and vaccines[15].

The media outlets promoting the social distancing may rest assured as a research of a World Bank[16] showed that in 2020 the extreme poverty (people living with less than 1.9$/day) affected 9.1-9.4% of the globe population. The Covid-19 pandemic has thrown between 88 and 115 million people into extreme poverty in 2020 and it is estimated that the total will reach 150 million people in 2021.

It is not about the whole media indeed but just the part of it able to penetrate the targetted mediums and which benefitted from charity donations granted by the billionaires. According to an analysis of 20,000 charity donations made by Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the journalist Bill Schwab found out that more than 250 million $ went to journalism[17].

We think that the human society did not reach yet the solidarity and maturity of seriously addressing the mankind’s stringent problems. The World Bank estimates that the number of cancer cases will reach 28.4 million, an increase of 47% as compared to 2020.

Ending the approach of this subject, I will give some examples showing us that the social distancing is well embeded in today’s human society: 1% of the richest people in the world possess double the amount possessed by 6.9 billion people; 4 cents only of every tax dollar represent the property tax (at the same time the super rich avoid paying around 30% of due taxes); 258 million children (one in five) cannot go to school; 10,000 people die everyday due to the lack of medical assistance; men own 50% more wealth than women.

The widening rich and poor divide affects not only the fight against poverty but also the economic growth and leads to social division.

Inequality is not something unavoidable, it is a political choice Romania in the global geopolitical context

The start of Covid-19 pandemic and all its economic, political and social implications surprised Romania in a less-than comfortable position[18], due to the almost 31 years that passed since the events of December 1989  and during which the Romanian political class as a whole demonstrated a narrow vision of the development of the country. The limited aims, party connected  and sometimes personal ones prevailed in front of the national aims. Except for the main achievements of this period, i.e. joining NATO (2004) and the European Union (2007), Romania was not able until now  to establish a country project capable of mobilizing all the forces of the nation for the next two to three decades. Limited objectives are chosen, with no national coverage and with no vision while the indebtness grows in a record-breaking pace and the future of the next generations is pawned without knowing exactly for what.

The lack of transparency was facilitated by the two months lockdown at the beginning of the pandemic and then by imposing on a month-by-month basis the state of alert. Moreover, Romania hurried up to notify the Council of Europe of activating the provision of the European Convention for the human rights allowing by way of exception to violate certain rights under the lockdown rule imposed as a result of the pandemic, accordinf to France Presse quoted by Agerpres. Similar notifications were sent by the Republic of Moldova, Latvia and Armenia but by no other EU member country. That means that with the exception of the right to life and forbidding the torture one can waive any other human right. A unnecessary extreme measure as some magistrates[19] said.

Furthermore, the schools were closed most of the time since the declaration of the pandemic and were reopened nationally on 8 February, 2021 a date after which new restrictions and closure of schools were applied. The obligation for the pupils to wear masks during sport classes was strongly criticized (there are no other EU member countries imposing such a measure).

A controversial episode was the Romanian seasonal workers leaving for Germany for harvesting asparagus during the lockdown (decreed on 16 March 2020 by the Romanian president) when without observing the rules in force thousands of workers crowded the charters bound for Germany from the Cluj, Sibiu and even Bucharest airports, a situation reflected by the international media too. Likewise, a railway corridor was set up in the spring of 2020 from   Timișoara to Austria for thousands of  Romanian women attending carers (more than 33,000 Austrians need to be permanently taken care of  24/24h and part of this assistance is provided by Romanian persons).

This is just part of the problems generated by the migration from Romania which can be summarized this way:

  • Romania is second in the world (after Syria) as number of migrating population, 9 Romanians per hour, 17% of the active population, one fifths of the entire population;
  • we have lost 40,000 physicians (2007-2017), 84,000 young people under 36 (2016), of whom 19% with higher education (61% women);
  • we are suppliers of qualified workforce for Austria, Hungary, France, Germany and super qualified workforce for the US and Canada.

The hospitality industry was badly affected, it registered great losses and it is assessed that the sector was among the first affected industries and among the last ones to recover. The numbers of employees in the sector decreased every month, certain capacities were closed for good while numerous others  have a precarious financial position. It is estimated that in 2020 only the HoReCa losses amounted to 7 billion euro.

It is the auto industry and IT[20] that are dominating now in what remained of the 1989 country’s economy while the agriculture is confronted with serious problems starting with the irrigations systems[21] and going through different crops. Speaking of sugar one sees that before 1989 the imports represented 20% of the consumption while now they top 80% of it, while the potatoes production decreased continuously during the last 10 years. So did the cultivated areas. Ten years ago, 3.5 – 4 million tons of potatoes were harvested on an area of 200,000 – 250,000 ha that has decreased during the last five years below 200,000 ha. Before 1990, potatoes were cultivated on 275,000 ha. Now Romania imports 70% of its potatoes consumption. 40% of Romania’s arable land has been sold to foreigners.

Discriminating and difficult to cope with measures have been adopted such as limiting the acces of persons over 65 to stores for buying essential goods to two hours a day (Military Ordinance No.3 /24 March 2020 set the mandatory hours – 11.00-13.00 and Military Ordinance No.10/27 April 2020 modified the hours to 07.00 – 11.00 and 19.00 – 22.00). Although there were expectations that this discriminating measure be strongly opposed and criticized,  public positions were sporadic at best. It is worth mentioning the position of the president of the Romanian Academy, academician Ioan Aurel Pop[22] from which I quote: ”Old people are (still) humans like all humans. They are now endangered by plague too, yet they are not dangerous. Do not ”protect” them beyond the measure because you will crush their humanity and tarnish their dignity. You cannot destroy or tarnish their humanity because they have plenty of and pour it relentlessly into this sick world.”

Despite the fact that most of the population have observed and observe the imposed limitations, the political leadership insisted on the coercive branch of the state and gave firm instructions to the police to impose fines on the population. Until the beginning of May 2020 only, more than 300,000 fines have been applied amounting to around 120 million euro.

Data published on the WHO site[23], show that by 6 march 2021 there were registered 816,589 cases of Covid-19 in Romania and a number of 20,684 people died. Until 22 February 2021, 1,274,421 vaccine doses were administered. I underline the EU’s role in securing the vaccine doses proportionally to the population of all its member states. Romania donated to the Republic of Moldova 21,600 veccine doses from the doses it received.  Alltogether, Romania promised to deliver to Chișinău 200,000 vaccine doses.

As occured in other European states, the political leadership committed many communication errors including wrong statistical data and demonstrated lack of transparency which did not contribute to boosting the confidence of the population in the adopted steps. However, the demonstrations and the public manifestations against the restrictions were less numerous or of lesser magnitude as compared to other European states (France, Great Britain, Germany, …). I think that this situation will not last indefinitely and announcing new restrictions as a result of the start of the third wave of the pandemic and declaring the red scenario for new areas (more than 3 cases/1,000 inhabitants), with the already imposed restrictions, all that could trigger a new wave of protests, more powerfull, with which the coalition of the right parties brought to power by president Iohannis at the end of 2020  could be confronted with. The austerity measures adopted and certain political and economic measures[24] that an important part of the political class and population do not agree upon should be added to the context.

Currently we see hope in the Recovery and Resilience Facility set up by the EU at 11 February 2021 (672.5 billion euro ) from which 30.5 billion euro are set for Romania (13.8 billion euro as grants and 16.7 billion euro as loans) that could contribute to the country’s economic recovery.

The facility is meant to help member states to deal with the economic and social impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, ensuring at the same time that their economies achive the green and digital transitions and become more sustainable and resilient.

In order to receive support from the Recovery and Resilience Facility, the EU countries are requested to set up in their national plans a coherent package of projects, reforms and investments in six policy fields:

  • green transition;
  • digital transformation;
  • intelligent, sustainable growth favourable to inclusion and employment of the workforce;
  • social and territorial cohesion;
  • health and resilience;
  • policies for the next generations including education and competencies.

The EU member states will officially submit their national recovery and resilience plans to the European Commission by 30 April 2021, in order to be assessed and approved. A first version of the plan sent by the government was already rejected as it did not take into account the provisions established for drawing up the plan.

Romania has an enormous development potential if we take into consideration its natural resources. The mineral deposits discovered are estimated at 734.8 billion euro. We are one of the few European countries with known deposits of crude oil and gas. When the national oil and gas company Petrom was privatized, 80% of the onshore blocks with economic potential were leased to the Austrian investors (who now want to turn the Targoviste Combine of Special Steels into scrap). The natural gas reserves are estimated at 660 billion cu.m. in the sub-Carpathian Arc and at more than 200 billion cu.m. offshore, in the Black Sea. Gold and silver deposits are estimated at 225 billion euro and the copper ones at 900 million tons. We have polymetalic ore deposits worth more than 30 billion euro. Coal deposits are estimated at around 190 billion euro yet there are only 4 mines now under exploitation out of the 24 mines in the Jiu Valley and out of the 55,000 miners working there before 1990 only 3,000 remained. The redundant personnel was completely neglected instead of being used for specific works or works needing a minimum requalification (highways and railways construction, etc).

Romania has also tellurium[25], a rare metalloid found in countries like China, the US, Canada and Australia while in Europe Sweden and Romania only have such deposits. A part of these deposits are leased to Canadian companies.

Hydro and Aeolian resources and mineral water have to be added to the mentioned resources. In case of new investments of 10 billion euro, wind mills could deliver around 6,000 MW within the next ten years[26] (the wind mills parks in Romania, most of them in Dobrogea, supply presently 3,000 MW).

Nevertheless, the incumbent government borrowed in 2020 only around 20 billion euro (without being very clear for what the amount was spent) and thus the public debt increased from around 36% of the GDP in 2019 to circa 44%. Or, as the poet said: “Our mountains full of gold and we beg from door to door[27]. An actual addition says: “we demolish for scrap any industry as it is much easier than investing in modern technologies and if we get upset we let other foreigners to sell our resources and we accept pickings!”. The main strategic resources are already in foreigners’ hands.

This is why 20% of the Romanians who left their country declare they will never return to Romania and 23%of them have foreign citizenship (Hungary, Italy, Spain, Grance, Canada, the US).

We could reach in a short time the point where, even if we wish, we don’t have with whom and with what to amend the situation. This is a distress signal the governing class did not seem to have heeded!

The Romanian politicians should understand that there are other things too, more urgent and more important, beyond the domestic disputes. Besides the party priorities there is the national interest we have to define, power and oposition, the Romanian society in general since there is no one coming from abroad to bring it to us in a sealed envelope”[28].

A mobilization of all responsible political forces for agreeing upon a new country’s strategic objective whereby the economic development and education must be placed on top is an urgent need.

Brief conclusions

The Covid-19 pandemic has multiple consequences worldwide and in each country. It is for the first time when such comprehensive measures are taken worldwide (for a disease that killed until the date of this article around 2.6 million people) since the Spanish flu (1918-1919 who caused between 50 and 100 million fatalities). For drawing meaningful conclusions, we have to answer the classical question: Qui prodest?

A first answer is given by the following graph:

Source: https://whatsnew2day.com/china-was-the-only-major-economy-to-grow-in-2020/

Obviously besides China, the only country which succeeded in maintaining a positive rate of development, the big corporations benefitted (as they did every time under difficult circumstances) and so did segments that grew by rapidly adapting themselves to the new situation or which were already involved in the respective fields such as pharma and medical equipment sector, IT, courier services, etc.

The contest between the big corporations and the political world advanced and entered a new stage whereby the political world that relies on the continuous flow of money is discovering the danger represented by the corporations’ increased power and tries to preserve its privileges. The corporate elites that control since long time the oil resources, the banks, the steel industry, automotive industry and others have already taken over the control of education (universities), health (Big Pharma), media and IT (Big Tech) and defense.

I think that 2021 proves to be much worse than 2020 – authoritarian lockdowns, the Big Tech censorship, an increase of social hysteria, manipulations and fake news so that the fight for democracy, human rights and psychical health[29] should be continued with even more resolution.

Nothing new under the sun. Here it is what a Romanian writer said almost 100 years ago:

Three phenomena of our times: the barbarians’ vertical invasion, the rule of the monkey-brains, the betrayal of the decent people.

First: it is not the barbarians from other continents who invade from bottom to top but the scoundrels. These barbarians take over the leadership places.

Second: the monkey-brains and the benighted acceded, plain and simple and in the most cathegorical sense, to power and, despite all economic laws and political rules they are monkeying around as ignorants do.

Third: instead of standing against, the decent people adopt condescending expectations, and by pretending they don’t see and don’t hear, they’re simply betraying. They don’t do their duty. The unbiased and the confident ones record (what is going on) and remain silent. They are the guiltiest”.[30]

The conclusions can be much more alaborate yet two questions linger on: why is it so hard to learn the lessons of the past? And especially “Qui prodest?”.

About the author:

Corneliu Pivariu-, Ingepo Consulting. Photographer Ionus Paraschiv

Corneliu Pivariu Military Intelligence and International Relations Senior Expert

A highly decorated retired two-star general of the Romanian army, during two decades he has led one of the most influential magazines on geopolitics and international relations in Eastern Europe, the bilingual journal Geostrategic Pulse.


[1] The Great Reset was on the agenda of the 2020 WEF meeting in Davos that brings together not only the the world plutocracy but also heads of states and governments and the globalist elites. Incidentally, Klaus Schwab, the WEF founder and executive chairman has published last year the book “COVID-19 The Great Reset” (co-author Thierry Malleret). The book runs through the main global trends in economy, environment and technology in a supposedly distinctive key for the WEF. In fact, Schwab says in the introductory note that the book is placed “on the borderline between an academic research and an essay”.

[2] The Fourth Industrial Revolution we supposedly are in, refers to the the introduction of technology into the physical, biological and digital world. We are talking about nanotechnology, robotics, 3D printing, biotechnology and much more – cf. Corneliu Pivariu, Mutări importante pe tabla de șah a geopoliticii 2014-2017, pag 90-91, Ed. Pastel, 2017.

[3] Corneliu Pivariu – Geopolitica înainte și după Covid-19, 2017-2020, Editura Marist, 2020, pag. 118.

[4]https://valdaiclub.com/multimedia/infographics/covid-19-and-the-fourth-industrial-revolution/

[5]Naomi A. Klein (born in 1970) journalist, authored more than 15 books, social activist, known for her political analyses and criticism of the corporatist globalisation.

[6] The Inequality Virus Report – Oxfam International, 25 January 2021

[7] According to the article  Sfârșitul democrației:“Marea Resetare”, by Ambrus Bela, Q Magazine 03.02.2021

[8]Already under way of implementation. IATA (The International Air Transport Association), that reunites more than 90% of the airlines had losses of 118 billion$ as a result of the decrease of the number of passangers by around 60%. It tests an app that will be available on smart phones probably by the end of March, 2021 which integrates all the steps needed for air travel in the context of the pandemic.

At the 24 February EU on-line summit, chancellor  Angela Merkel said that all states agreed on introducing digital vaccination certificates which will be probably available before the summer of 2021. The Member States will decide shortly how the application will be used and the evolutions concerning the decisions on the subject  are presently fluid.

[9] See the complete text on www.xinhuannet.com

[10] http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/64938

[11] https://news.un.org/en/story/2021/02/1084962

[12]Resolution 2656/2021, unanimously adopted by the 15 UN Security Council members reiterates nevertheless the provisions of the Resolution 2532/2020 calling for a general and immediate cessation of all hostilities, in all the situations to fight the pandemic.

[13] I warmly recommend the article of Prof. Anis H. Bajrectarevic: 2020– A Year when Distancing became Social – Vienna, 20 Dec. 2020 on the same topic.

[14]In a notice of 20 March 2020, even the WHO announced it was distancing itself from the term ”social distancing” (initially promoted by the organisation). Maria Van Kerkhove, an epidemiologist of infectious diseases with the WHO reiterated this stance in a press conference. ”We said physical distancing because it is important to remain physically separated yet socially connected”, she said adding that people should take care of their mental health and of the loved ones during pandemic when social connections are more important than ever.

[15] The Bill&Melinda Gates Foundation is an important funder of the WHO too, covering,  according to the organisation’s site, 11.2% of its total budget (December 2020) and during the summer of 2020 it represented 45% of the donations made by non-government entities.

[16]www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2020/10/07/covid-19-to-add-as-many-as-150-million-extreme-poor-by-2021

[17]www.cjr.org/criticism/gates-foundation-journalism-funding.php

[18] A brief radiography of today’s Romania can be found in the article România la 101 ani de la crearea statului național unitar and can be accessed on https://corneliupivariu.com

[19] Cristi Dănileț, judge at the Cluj Court and former member of the Higher Magistracy Council declared on Facebook:  “Erdogan’s Turkey did that in order to arrest and sentence, by-passing the rule of law, the regime’s opponents. I do consider Romania’s request far-fetchedand and as a judge I am compelled to denounce it publicly. IT IS NOT POSSIBLE TO DO THAT! We are not at war with people or with a state but with a miserable virus”.

[20] The Romanian company MetaMinds is among the first ten European companies in the cybersecurity field that has had a turnover of 1 million euro in  its first year and reached 25million euro in 2019.

[21] Romanian farmers irrigated an area of 508,000 ha of arable land in 2017, more than 6 times less than in 1989 when 3.2 million ha were irrigated.

[22] He published on 14 April 2020 an essay titled  The dangerous old people, available on the Academy site and retrieved by numerous media outlets.

[23] See https://covid19.who.int/region/euro/country/ro

[24] It is rumored that shares of state companies such as the Constanta Port, CEC, the only bank with 100% Romanian capital, Hidroelectrica,etc. are to be put up for sale when the international context is not favourable at all and all European countries seek to protect their indigenous capital under difficult circumstances.

[25] Used in the aero-space, energy, military, IT fields.

[26]Power Summit 2021, Bucharest 23-24 February

[27]Octavian Goga (1881 – 1938) the poem Our mountains

[28]Liviu Mureșan – chairman of EURISC, speech delivered at the second edition of the  event Black Sea Forum, organized by Financial Intelligence, March 2021.

[29]“Disconnect yourselves from the excessive load of information (especially mass-media), disconnect yourselves from the excess of technologies (attend a digital diet), forget about the smart phone at least one day a week, enter airplane mode whenever you can. Use your brain for creating and not for repeating  the fears you have been injected with …” – Ana María Oliva –  engineer with a PhD in  biomedicine.

[30]Nicolae Steinhardt (1912-1989), Romanian writer, essayist, jurist and publicist, Paris 1937.

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