Romania EJPR 2012

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268 European Political Data Yearbook 51: 268–278, 2012

doi: 10.1111/j.2047-8852.2012.00029.x
1 Romania
2
3 LAVINIA STAN1 & RAZVAN ZAHARIA2

1
4 St Francis Xavier University, Canada; 2Bucharest Academy of Economic Studies, Romania
6 After the government introduced painful austerity measures in 2010 to

7 address the effects of the global financial crisis, which led to significant salary
8 and benefits cuts for hundreds of thousands of public servants, the Romanian
9 economy showed signs of slow recovery and relative stability of the foreign
10 exchange rate of its currency, the Leu. Notwithstanding this positive economic
11 turn, Romania continued to experience growing mistrust among major politi-
12 cal actors and a generally unimpressive governmental performance.
13 Since the next local and parliamentary elections are in 2012, the year 2011
14 represented the last chance for the Democrat Liberal governmental majority
15 to push through parliament its policy priorities in education, labour policy, the
16 fight against corruption and the reorganisation of political institutions. It partly
17 succeeded, but its reluctance to engage the opposition and civil society in the
18 debate on legislative proposals, its unwillingness to assume responsibility for
19 bills in order to avoid discussion in parliament and its refusal to submit to the
20 scrutiny of elected officials increasingly isolated the Democrat Liberals from
21 other political formations and the general public. As a result, popular support
22 for the party stood at no more than 15–18 per cent throughout 2011 (Centrul
23 de Studii si Cercetari Infopolitic 2011; Ziare 2011).
24
25 Issues in national politics

26
27 The year 2011 was marked by vigorous debates over the allegedly dictatorial
28 tendencies of President Băsescu, and Prime Minister Boc’s unquestioned
29 acceptance of Băsescu’s policy suggestions; some encouraging results regis-
30 tered in the anticorruption fight; and efforts to reform key political institutions
31 and render them more responsive to citizens, more efficient and less wasteful.
32
33 Political migration, cabinet reshuffles and motions
34
35 Appointed in September 2010 (Stan & Zaharia 2011), Boc IV warded off
36 criticism and retained the confidence of parliament throughout 2011 with
© 2012 The Author(s)
European Journal of Political Research © 2012 European Consortium for Political Research
Published by Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford, OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden,
MA 02148, USA
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ROMANIA 269
1 Table 1. Cabinet composition of Boc IV1
2
3 A. The party composition of Boc IV:
4 Date of investiture: 3 September 2010
5
6 Number and Number and
7 percentage of percentage of
8 Party parliamentary seats cabinet posts
9
10 Partidul Democrat-Liberal – Democrat-Liberal 121 (36.9) 11 (61.1)
11 Party (PD-L)
12 Uniunea Democrată a Maghiarilor din România – 20 (6.1) 4 (22.2)
13 Democratic Alliance of Magyars in Romania
14 (UDMR)
15 Uniunea Nat,ională pentru Progresul României – 18 (5.5) 1 (5.5)
16 National Alliance for the Progress of Romania
17 Independents 2 (11.1)
18
19 B. Cabinet members of Boc IV:
20 Prime Minister/Prim-ministru: Emil Boc (1966 male, PD-L)
21 Vice-Prime Minister/Viceprim-ministru: Béla Markó (1951 male, UDMR)
22 Minister of Administration and Interior/Ministrul Administrat,iei s,i Internelor: Constantin
23 Traian Igas, (1968 male, PD-L)
24 Minister of Public Finance/Ministrul Finant,elor Publice: Gheorghe Ialomit,ianu (1959
25 male, PD-L)
26 Minister of Economy, Trade and Business Environment/Ministrul Economiei, Comert,ului
27 s,i Mediului de Afaceri: Ion Ariton (1956 male, PD-L)
28 Minister of Foreign Affairs/Ministrul Afacerilor Externe: Teodor Baconschi (1963 male,
29 PD-L)
30 Minister of Transport and Infrastructure/Ministrul Transporturilor s,i Infrastructurii: Anca
31 Daniela Boagiu (1968 female, PD-L)
32 Minister of Environment and Forests/Ministrul Mediului s,i Pădurilor: László Borbély
33 (1954 male, UDMR)
34 Minister of Regional Development and Tourism/Ministrul Dezvoltării Regionale s,i
35 Turismului: Elena Gabriela Udrea (1973 female, PD-L)
36 Minister of National Defence/Ministrul Apărării Nat,ionale: Gabriel Oprea (1961
37 male, UNPR)
38 Minister of Culture and National Patrimony/Ministrul Culturii s,i Patrimoniului Nat,ional:
39 Hunor Kelemen (1967 male, UDMR)
40 Minister of Justice/Ministrul Justit,iei: Cătălin Marian Predoiu (1968 male, Ind)
41 Minister of Communications and Informational Society/Ministrul Comunicat,iilor s,i
42 Societăt,ii Informat,ionale: Valerian Vreme (1963 male, PD-L)
43 Minister of Labour, Family and Social Protection/Ministrul Muncii, Familiei s,i Protect,iei
44 Sociale: Sulfina Barbu (1967 female, PD-L)
45 Minister of Education, Research, Youth and Sport/Ministrul Educat,iei, Cercetării,
46 Tineretului s,i Sportului: Daniel Petru Funeriu (1971 male, PD-L)
47 Minister of Health/Ministrul Sănătăt,ii: Ladislau Ritli (1948 male, UDMR)
48 Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development/Ministrul Agriculturii s,i Dezvoltarii
49 Rurale: Valeriu Tabără (1949 male, PD-L)
50 Minister of European Affairs/Ministrul Afacerilor Europene: Leonard Orban (1961
51 male, Ind)
1
52 Note: Data relevant to 31 December of 2011.

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270 LAVINIA STAN & RAZVAN ZAHARIA
1 Table 2. Cabinet composition of Emil Boc IV

2
3 For the composition of Emil Boc IV on 1 January 2011, see Stan and Zaharia (2011:
4 1108–1117).
5
6 Changes during 2011:
8 Sociale: Ioan Nelu Botis, (1967, male, PD-L) resigned on 20 April and
9 was replaced by Emil Boc (1966 male, PD-L) on 21 April
11 Sociale ad interim: Emil Boc was replaced by Sebastian Laurent,iu Lăzăroiu (1970,
12 male, Ind) on 3 June
14 Sociale: Sebastian Laurent,iu Lazăroiu was dismissed on 16 September
15 and replaced by Sulfina Barbu (1967 female, PD-L) on 19 September
16 Minister of Health/Ministrul Sănătăt,ii: Attila Zoltán Cseke (1973 male, UDMR) resigned
17 and was replaced by Ladislau Ritli (1948 male, UDMR) on 17 August
18 Minister of European Affairs/Ministrul Afacerilor Europene: Leonard Orban (1961
19 male, Ind) was appointed on 20 September
20
21 minimal changes to its composition. However, its working style became

22 increasingly contested when the Court of Auditors detailed the manner in
23 which the government spent public money and kept the books. After auditing
24 a quarter of all governmental agencies, the Court found that in 2010, over €750
25 million had been squandered by central and local government agencies in
26 unjustified purchases and spending. Total damages reached €9.1 billion at a
27 time when the cabinet introduced massive layoffs and salary cuts in public
28 administration (Curtea de Conturi 2011: 14–15). For Boc’s critics, the reports
29 showed that the ruling Democrat Liberals allowed ordinary citizens, many of
30 whom were public servants, to disproportionally shoulder the austerity meas-
31 ures while perpetuating the waste of public resources that for years had
32 enriched firms close to powerful politicians and state dignitaries.
33 Though never unseated by a motion of no-confidence, Boc IV was con-
34 stantly challenged by the opposition. In 2011, two censure motions and five
35 simple motions were introduced in parliament. None of them was adopted, but
36 all sparked spirited debates between the government and the opposition. The
37 first censure motion, introduced in March by 210 opposition legislators, faulted
38 the government for implementing austerity measures, reducing salaries, cutting
39 subsidies and laying off public servants, but was unable to propose concrete
40 alternative solutions to address the effects of the financial crisis. The second
41 censure motion, discussed in December, took issue with the government’s
42 proposal to hold the local and parliamentary elections in November 2012,
43 rather than separately in summer and fall, as was the case until 2008. Many
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ROMANIA 271
1 Democrat Liberal legislators were sympathetic to the motion, but voting for it
2 would have brought the cabinet down. As such, they registered their presence,
3 but refused to vote. Only 209 of the minimum required 233 legislators sup-
4 ported the motion, which did not pass. The simple motions took issue with
5 problems in the health care system and public transportation, the govern-
6 ment’s failure to stop drug use by the youth, the proposal to allow Romanian
7 citizens living abroad to vote electronically and the government’s agricultural
8 policy.
9 In addition, under Boc, the government assumed responsibility before
10 parliament more often than under any other Romanian post-communist
11 prime minister. Whereas in previous legislatures cabinets assumed responsi-
12 bility on not more than four occasions, the Boc cabinets did so fifteen times
13 by December 2011. In 2011 alone, the government assumed responsibility
14 five times: once in March to amend the Labour Code, twice in April to
15 change the wages of teachers and professors working in public education
16 institutions, and twice in December to reform the organisation of the judi-
17 ciary and allow for local and parliamentary elections to be run concurrently
18 in 2012. Legislative proposals for which the government assumes responsi-
19 bility are not voted on by parliament, and are considered adopted by the
20 legislature unless MPs introduce censure motions within three days. As they
21 involve no discussion in the house, the gesture of assuming responsibility is
22 seen as undemocratic by local observers.
23 Equally contested was the cabinet’s growing reliance on emergency ordi-
24 nances. While in 2008 the Călin Popescu Tariceanu cabinet issued 99 emer-
25 gency ordinances, in 2011 the Boc government issues 126. Article 115 of the
26 constitution allows governments to ‘adopt emergency ordinances in excep-
27 tional cases’, but in practice the urgent nature of the problem at hand is almost
28 never demonstrated. An emergency ordinance comes into force after being
29 debated by legislators, and published in the Official Gazette. However, if par-
30 liament does not provide an opinion on the ordinance within thirty days of its
31 submission, then the ordinance is deemed adopted. This was often the case
32 when governments have solid parliamentary majorities, and therefore the
33 practice is deemed undemocratic.
34 Legislators continued to cross the floor, although the practice has been
35 vigorously criticised by civil society groups. By December 2011, 45 deputies out
36 of 327 crossed the floor 68 times to join other political formations or become
37 independent legislators. Three of them changed their caucus three different
38 times during the year. The ruling Democrat Liberals lost three deputies in 2010
39 and four in 2011. The heaviest losses were sustained by the main opposition
40 party, the Social Democrats, who lost seven deputies in 2009, 14 in 2010 and
41 five in 2011. Their allies, the Liberals, lost ten deputies in 2009 and four in 2010.
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1 The Democrat Liberals welcomed 12 new members, and the Social Democrats
2 and the Liberals six each, but most of the gains benefited the caucus of
3 independent deputies, known as the Group of Progressive Deputies, which was
4 joined by 39 deputies.When bills were voted on, this caucus has generally sided
5 with the ruling Democrat Liberals.
6 The migration of elected representatives has been a matter of public
7 concern since the 1990s because the proportional representation with party
8 lists system used in parliamentary elections means that politicians are elected
9 because of the party they represent more than their own political and mana-
10 gerial abilities. Thus, migration is seen as betraying the trust of the voters, who
11 supported the candidate because they wanted to support the candidate’s party.
12 Calls on the part of the Coalition for a Clean Parliament for deputies and
13 senators to curtail the practice, and for voters not to support candidates who
14 changed their party colours, have had limited success.
15
16 The fight against corruption
17
18 In 2011, Romania remained one of the most corrupt countries in Europe. Both
19 before and after its acceptance into the European Union the country promised
20 to address this issue, but was unable to do so effectively because the very
21 institutions that are meant to eradicate it – the police and the courts – are
22 involved in patronage, nepotism and cronyism. In addition, the legislation
23 punishing involvement in such practices is weak, lenient and poorly imple-
24 mented, and while most Romanian citizens deplore the persistently high levels
25 of corruption, for various reasons they continue to use the extensive patron-
26 client networks that keep the country a prisoner to their interests. Corruption
27 continued to affect all localities, most public institutions, and many schools and
28 hospitals, but significant steps in the anti-corruption fight were also registered.
29 First, in February, over 160 custom officials and border police officers
30 working at the country’s borders with Ukraine, Moldova and Serbia were
31 arrested on charges of accepting bribes for allowing people and goods to cross
32 the border illegally. Considered the largest such operation to date, this massive
33 arrest campaign sought to convince critical EU officials that the country could
34 fulfil its obligations sufficiently to be accepted into the Schengen area. Con-
35 cerns have been raised by older Union members, especially the Netherlands,
36 regarding Romania’s inability to monitor its eastern and southwestern
37 borders, which would become the Union’s outer borders if the country joins
38 Schengen. While the Romanian government hailed the arrests as proof of its
39 commitment to address EU concerns, its political will quickly vanished. By 20
40 May, all those arrested were released from jail without much explanation. The
41 arrests were unlikely to curb the border officials’ appetite for bribes since
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ROMANIA 273
1 investigations were stalled, and the legislation of integrity and anticorruption

2 was not amended to include harsher punishment for corrupt behaviour.
3 Second, the courts arrested or found guilty a number of prominent poli-
4 ticians and state officials. While the arrests were quite daring, given the politi-
5 cal clout of those apprehended, they were too few to change the position
6 toward corruption of citizens, journalists or politicians since so many other
7 corrupt officials were not affected by the anti-corruption drive and most
8 arrests targeted opposition members. Arrest warrants were issued in the case
9 of controversial businessman Sorin Ovidiu Vântu, who amassed a fortune
10 through the National Investment Fund, a Ponzi-like scheme in which many
11 ordinary Romanians lost their life savings; labour union leader Liviu Luca,
12 for money laundering and embezzlement; and union leader Marius Petcu, for
13 accepting a bribe of over US$400,000 to rig a public tender in favour of a
14 firm. In October, High Court of Cassation and Justice judges Gabriela Bârsan
15 and Iuliana Pus,oiu were indicted for receiving jewels and holiday packages
16 abroad from businessmen interested in winning some court cases. Arges,
17 County Council President Constantin Nicolescu, a powerful Social Democrat
18 leader, was arrested for allowing his relatives’ firms to pocket PHARE funds
19 worth €900,000 by reporting that four schools were reconstructed, when in
20 fact they were not. Liberal Party Deputy Virgil Popa, sentenced to five years
21 prison for abusing his office, is the first Romanian legislator to serve his
22 sentence. S,erban Mihăilescu, known as ‘Miki Bakshish’ for the extensive cli-
23 entelistic network he built as a Social Democrat leader in 2000–2004,
24 received a suspended one-year prison term. Independent deputies Dan Ilie
25 Morega and Cosmin Mihai Popescu were also found guilty of corruption, but
26 their sentences were suspended.
27 The most notorious cases related to Adrian Năstase and Sorin Apostu.
28 Năstase, a prominent Social Democrat leader, former Prime Minister (2000–
29 2004) and former Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies (2004–2006), was
30 acquitted in the so-called ‘Tamara Aunt Case’ in which he stood accused
31 together with his former adviser Ristea Priboi and Ioan Melinescu, former
32 head of the National Office for the Prevention and Combat of Money Laun-
33 dering in 2001–2004. Prosecutors charged that in November 2000, Melinescu
34 contacted Năstase and Priboi to let them know that the Office had started
35 investigating a US$400,000 bank deposit made into the account of Năstase’s
36 wife, Dana. After the phone call, Năstase promoted Melinescu to Office
37 head. In turn, Melinescu took the case file and sent it to Năstase through
38 Priboi. Investigators questioned the source of the deposited money, which
39 Năstase claimed to come from the selling of assets belonging to Dana’s elderly
40 aunt Tamara. However, prosecutors refuted these claims. In December 2011,
41 the High Court dismissed the case against Năstase on procedural grounds
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1 (Mediafax 2011). Năstase is known for his lavish spending and luxurious
2 lifestyle and for tolerating extensive clientelistic networks that used public
3 resources for private gains under his prime ministership, when his family’s
4 wealth was rapidly but inexplicably augmented.
5 On 10 November,Apostu, the mayor of Cluj,Transylvania’s largest city, was
6 arrested after the police discovered that he received bribes worth €94,000
7 through his wife’s legal office in exchange for granting various public tenders
8 to selected private firms. He remains the highest ranking Democrat Liberal
9 Party member accused of corruption.
10
11 Institutional reforms
12
13 In 2011, President Băsescu and Prime Minister Boc unsuccessfully called for
14 an overhaul of key political institutions. First, they insisted on redesigning
15 parliament from a bicameral to a unicameral body by dismantling the upper
16 chamber and reducing the total number of legislators. In a 2009 referendum, a
17 large majority of Romanians favoured a smaller unicameral parliament (Stan
18 & Zaharia 2009), but no changes could be implemented because the referen-
19 dum was consultative, not binding, and legislators refused to support the
20 needed constitutional amendments.
21 Second, they argued for holding the local and parliamentary elections of
22 2012 on the same day. From 1990 until 2004, elections were organised every
23 four years – local elections in June, and parliamentary elections together with
24 the first round of presidential elections in November. The 2003 constitutional
25 amendments stipulated a five-year presidential mandate, and thus parliamen-
26 tary and presidential elections were held separately after 2004. With the global
27 financial crisis, the cabinet looked for ways to cut public spending and pro-
28 posed holding local and parliamentary elections together. Boc apparently
29 believed that the proposal favoured his Democrat Liberals by allowing their
30 parliamentary candidates, who had turned unpopular as a result of the auster-
31 ity measures of 2010, to enjoy a ‘transfer of sympathy’ from local candidates.
32 However, the proposal raised a serious constitutional challenge as running
33 local elections in November unconstitutionally lengthened the mayors’ man-
34 dates. The cabinet bypassed parliament by assuming responsibility for chang-
35 ing the election date, but the Constitutional Court ultimately blocked the
36 proposal by rejecting it as unconstitutional. As such, the local and parliamen-
37 tary elections of 2012 will be held separately.
38 Third, the cabinet changed the way that High Court of Cassation and
39 Justice judges were nominated. The amendments, for which the cabinet
40 assumed responsibility, improved the justices’ selection by introducing for
41 the first time ‘guarantees of transparency, objectivity and professionalism’
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ROMANIA 275
1 (Mihaescu 2011). More specifically, candidates could only be considered who

2 had worked for at least five years as a judge with the Court of Appeal or as a
3 prosecutor with the Court of Appeal or the High Court, received high scores
4 in the three most recent annual evaluations, were never sanctioned for their
5 actions, and served as judge or prosecutor for at least 15 years. According to
6 Article 28 of Law 304/2004, the eleven High Court judges are elected for
7 three-year terms by the General Assembly of Judges, consisting of all judges in
8 the country. While direct elections were hailed as more democratic than nomi-
9 nation by the president or prime minister, they were unable to correct the
10 many problems plaguing the High Court, and this is why the cabinet intro-
11 duced the new meritocratic criteria. However, the opposition denounced the
12 changes for allegedly allowing the government to promote its own supporters
13 to those posts and, through them, to impose political decisions in court cases in
14 which opposition leaders like Năstase stood accused.
15 Fourth, the ruling Democrat Liberals unsuccessfully called for the reor-
16 ganisation of Romania’s administrative territorial structure. Besides the
17 capital Bucharest, which is considered a separate unit, Romania is divided into
18 41 relatively small counties, each with an elected County Council and an
19 appointed prefect with overlapping responsibilities. The proposal sought to
20 replace the counties with eight larger regions centred on the larger county
21 capitals (Bucharest, Bras,ov, Cluj, Constant,a, Craiova, Ias,i, Ploies,ti and
22 Timis,oara). These regions were created in 1998 to coordinate local develop-
23 ment in view of EU accession. They correspond to the Union’s Nomenclature
24 of Territorial Units for Statistics (NTUS) two divisions, allocate PHARE funds
25 for regional development, coordinate regional infrastructure projects and have
26 belonged to the Committee of the Regions since January 2007, but are not
27 recognised in Romania as juridical persons in the same way as the counties.
28 This administrative reorganisation would have drastically reduced
29 bureaucracy both at the county level, by incorporating the smaller counties
30 into the larger regions, and at the municipal level, by downgrading most county
31 capitals to the level of regular towns. At the same time, the proposal was
32 unpopular with political parties and politicians because it abolished many
33 public offices used to reward loyal supporters and sympathisers. The most
34 vocal critic was the Democratic Union of Magyars in Romania, which repre-
35 sents the Transylvanian Hungarian minority. The Union denounced the pro-
36 posal as an attack on the Hungarian minority since the regional capitals
37 included none of the towns with a large Hungarian population (Sfântu Gheo-
38 rghe, Miercurea Ciuc, Târgu Mures, or Zalău) and none of the regions had an
39 ethnic Hungarian majority.The Union asked for the predominantly Hungarian
40 Covasna and Harghita counties to be reorganised as one separate region, but
41 the Democrat Liberals rejected the call.
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1 Changes in the education system

2
3 Education reforms introduced by Law 1/2011 represented the most important
4 policy accomplishment of Boc IV. At the pre-university level, the law punished
5 plagiarism and fraud in an effort to improve the performance of Romanian
6 pupils, who scored low in the Programme for International Student Assess-
7 ment (PISA), initiated by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and
8 Development (OECD).The programme tests 15 year-old pupils on the basis of
9 standardised examinations. In 2009, Romanian pupils ranked 49th in reading,
10 47th in maths and 48th in science. In Europe, only pupils from Albania and
11 Montenegro scored lower. For years, Romanian teachers have supported
12 grade inflation and allowed pupils to cheat on the baccalaureate examination
13 that marks the end of high school studies for fear that their school would score
14 lower than others and thus be unable to attract new pupils and funds from the
15 Ministry of Education. In summer 2011, video surveillance cameras were
16 introduced in schools to prevent pupils from cheating. As a result, only 45 per
17 cent of all pupils taking the baccalaureate passed it. While the surveillance
18 systems curtailed dishonest practices, they came at a time of drastic budget
19 cuts, when many schools in remote villages were closed (forcing pupils to
20 commute daily or simply abandon school), hundreds of teachers were laid off,
21 and those who kept their jobs faced drastic salary cuts. Analysts argue that the
22 PISA results will never improve as long as governments do not address the
23 problems of school abandonment, outdated curricula and underpaid teachers,
24 and continue to allot only 3.85 per cent of the national budget to education.
25 The OECD average is 5.7 per cent (OECD 2010) and Law 1/2011 provided for
26 a minimum of 6 per cent.
27 The changes further aimed to turn Romanian universities into competitive
28 higher education institutions by making publication in internationally recog-
29 nised peer-reviewed journals a hiring and promotion criterion. Since 1989, no
30 Romanian university has scored high in international university rankings, and
31 few Romanian academics have published with the best presses and in the top
32 journals, which is also because professors favour teaching over research. Local
33 publication venues have little circulation outside the universities that produce
34 them, and they base publication decisions on the author’s reputation and
35 academic rank more than the manuscript’s quality. Romanian academics
36 remain disconnected from major scholarly debates waged internationally,
37 which is exacerbated by the fact that they receive little training in methodol-
38 ogy, being socialised in a system privileging descriptive essays and normative
39 approaches over empirically based analytical research. The new publishing
40 requirements have yet to change the dominant paradigm as they were intro-
41 duced at a time when the Ministry of Education, Research, Youth and Sport
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ROMANIA 277
1 decided to freeze hiring and promotions due to financial constraints. Accord-

2 ing to the law, full professors must undergo evaluations every five years, but
3 none took place in 2011.
4 Law 1/2011 also sought to improve university management and curb cor-
5 ruption and nepotism. Some professors demand bribes from students or ask
6 them to attend paid tutorials that complement the professors’ income. Others
7 engage in plagiarism without being reprimanded by their university or the
8 ministry (Stan & Turcescu 2004). Some rectors treat their universities as their
9 own feudal properties. Critics faulted the law for encroaching on academic
10 autonomy by allowing the Minister to dismiss the rectors, discontinuing the
11 practice of electing the vice-rectors and the deans, prohibiting faculty from
12 teaching more than 14 hours a week (in the case of full professors) and 22
13 hours a week (in the case of teaching assistants), and asking universities to
14 seek permission from the Ministry for creating new faculties and pro-
15 grammes, adopting new statutes and deciding the number of new students to
16 enrol in each programme. The new law stipulates that any ‘scientific person-
17 ality’ from Romania or abroad can seek the position of rector, but Romanian
18 universities are unable to attract researchers from abroad because of a host
19 of financial and nonfinancial reasons. The rector is accountable to the univer-
20 sity senate, and the deans to the rector, with all being dismissed if unable to
21 fulfil their management contracts. The Senate, which represents students and
22 faculty, monitors the activity of the Administration Council, led by the rector.
23 The law allows universities to fire academics who engage in plagiarism or
24 whose thesis students do so, and targets conflict of interest by banning rela-
25 tives from simultaneously occupying leadership posts in the same university
26 and being subordinated to each other. In 2011, the Law could not be imple-
27 mented because no new elections of rectors and deans took place, and neither
28 the universities nor the Ministry formed ethics committees to discuss cases of
29 academic dishonesty.
30
31 Conclusion
32
33 The third year of the legislative cycle, 2011 proved to be a relatively calm one
34 for Boc IV, which retained the confidence of parliament throughout the year.
35 The ruling Democrat Liberals and the opposition Social Democrats and Lib-
36 erals became increasingly polarised and disconnected from the general popu-
37 lation, whose discontent deepened with the austerity measures implemented
38 in 2009 and 2010 and a political elite almost exclusively pursuing its group
39 interests. This polarisation forced the cabinet to frequently resort to emer-
40 gency ordinances and to assume responsibility in parliament in order to enact
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1 its policy priorities. The anti-corruption campaign registered some success, but
2 not enough to rid the country of the plague of almost universal bribes and
3 systemic cronyism. The reforms in the education, which look revolutionary on
4 paper and are among the few accomplishments the government registered in
5 2011, are yet to prove their worth.
6
7 Sources and further information

8
9 Publications:
10
11 Stan, L. & Turcescu, L. (2004). Politicians, intellectuals and academic integrity in Romania.
12 Problems of Post-Communism 51(July/August): 12–24.
13 Stan, L. & and Zaharia, R. (2009). Romania. European Journal of Political Research 48(7–8):
14 1087–1099.
15 Stan, L. & Zaharia, R. (2011). Romania. European Journal of Political Research 50(7–8):
16 1108–1117.
17
18 On the Internet:
19
20 Centrul de Studii si Cercetari Infopolitic (2011). Sondaj de Opinie, January. Available online
21 at: www.infopolitic.ro/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/SONDAJ_csci_ianuarie_2_2011.pdf
22 Constitution of Romania (2003). Available online at: www.cdep.ro/pls/dic/site.page?id=371
23 Curtea de Conturi (2011). Raportul public pe 2010. Bucharest: Curtea de Conturi. Available
24 online at: www.curteadeconturi.ro/sites/ccr/RO/Publicatii/Documente%20publice/
25 Raportul%20public%20pe%20anul%202010.pdf
26 Legea 304/2004 of 25 November 2010. Available online at: www.scj.ro/legi/Legea
27 %20304.html
28 Mihaescu, S. (2011). Guvernul şi-a asumat răspunderea pentru promovarea judecătorilor şi
29 pentru comasarea alegerilor. Radio Romania, 15 December 2011. Available online at:
30 www.politicaromaneasca.ro/guvernul_si_a_asumat_raspunderea_pentru_promovarea_
31 judecatorilor_si_pentru_comasarea_alegerilor-7156
32 Năstase, A. (2011). Achitat în dosarul Mătuşa Tamara. Mediafax, 15 December. Available
33 online at: www.mediafax.ro/social/adrian-nastase-achitat-in-dosarul-matusa-tamara-
34 9063439
35 Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) (2010). Regards sur
36 l’éducation 2010: Les indicateurs de l’OCDE 2010. Available online at: www.oecd.org/
37 document/35/0,3746,fr_2649_39263238_45917667_1_1_1_1,00.html
38 Ziare (2011). USL are 55% din voturi, PDL stagneaza la 18% – sondaj Soros. Ziare.com,
39 December.Available online at: http://www.ziare.com/uniunea-social-liberala/pdl/usl-are-
40 55-la-suta-din-voturi-pdl-stagneaza-la-18-la-suta-sondaj-soros-1139194

USING e-ANNOTATION TOOLS FOR ELECTRONIC PROOF CORRECTION
Required software to e-Annotate PDFs: Adobe Acrobat Professional or Adobe Reader (version 8.0 or
above). (Note that this document uses screenshots from Adobe Reader X)
The latest version of Acrobat Reader can be downloaded for free at: http://get.adobe.com/reader/
Once you have Acrobat Reader open on your computer, click on the Comment tab at the right of the toolbar:
This will open up a panel down the right side of the document. The majority of
tools you will use for annotating your proof will be in the Annotations section,
pictured opposite. We’ve picked out some of these tools below:
1. Replace (Ins) Tool – for replacing text. 2. Strikethrough (Del) Tool – for deleting text.
Strikes a line through text and opens up a text Strikes a red line through text that is to be
box where replacement text can be entered. deleted.
How to use it How to use it

 Highlight a word or sentence.  Highlight a word or sentence.
 Click on the Replace (Ins) icon in the Annotations  Click on the Strikethrough (Del) icon in the
section. Annotations section.
 Type the replacement text into the blue box that
appears.
3. Add note to text Tool – for highlighting a section 4. Add sticky note Tool – for making notes at
to be changed to bold or italic. specific points in the text.
Highlights text in yellow and opens up a text Marks a point in the proof where a comment
box where comments can be entered. needs to be highlighted.

 Highlight the relevant section of text.  Click on the Add sticky note icon in the
 Click on the Add note to text icon in the Annotations section.
Annotations section.  Click at the point in the proof where the comment
 Type instruction on what should be changed should be inserted.
regarding the text into the yellow box that  Type the comment into the yellow box that
appears. appears.
USING e-ANNOTATION TOOLS FOR ELECTRONIC PROOF CORRECTION
5. Attach File Tool – for inserting large amounts of 6. Add stamp Tool – for approving a proof if no
text or replacement figures. corrections are required.
Inserts an icon linking to the attached file in the Inserts a selected stamp onto an appropriate
appropriate pace in the text. place in the proof.

 Click on the Attach File icon in the Annotations  Click on the Add stamp icon in the Annotations
section. section.
 Click on the proof to where you’d like the attached  Select the stamp you want to use. (The Approved
file to be linked. stamp is usually available directly in the menu that
 Select the file to be attached from your computer appears).
or network.  Click on the proof where you’d like the stamp to
 Select the colour and type of icon that will appear appear. (Where a proof is to be approved as it is,
in the proof. Click OK. this would normally be on the first page).
7. Drawing Markups Tools – for drawing shapes, lines and freeform

annotations on proofs and commenting on these marks.
Allows shapes, lines and freeform annotations to be drawn on proofs and for
comment to be made on these marks..
How to use it
 Click on one of the shapes in the Drawing
Markups section.
 Click on the proof at the relevant point and
draw the selected shape with the cursor.
 To add a comment to the drawn shape,
move the cursor over the shape until an
arrowhead appears.
 Double click on the shape and type any
text in the red box that appears.
For further information on how to annotate proofs, click on the Help menu to reveal a list of further options:

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JOBNAME: No Job Name PAGE: 1 SESS: 22 OUTPUT: Fri Oct 19 20:44:33 2012 SUM: 87A37385

Toppan Best-set Premedia Limited

268 European Political Data Yearbook 51: 268–278, 2012

3 LAVINIA STAN1 & RAZVAN ZAHARIA2

6 After the government introduced painful austerity measures in 2010 to

25 Issues in national politics

© 2012 The Author(s)

270 LAVINIA STAN & RAZVAN ZAHARIA

1 Table 2. Cabinet composition of Emil Boc IV

21 minimal changes to its composition. However, its working style became

272 LAVINIA STAN & RAZVAN ZAHARIA

1 investigations were stalled, and the legislation of integrity and anticorruption

274 LAVINIA STAN & RAZVAN ZAHARIA

1 (Mihaescu 2011). More specifically, candidates could only be considered who

276 LAVINIA STAN & RAZVAN ZAHARIA

1 Changes in the education system

1 decided to freeze hiring and promotions due to financial constraints. Accord-

278 LAVINIA STAN & RAZVAN ZAHARIA

7 Sources and further information

© 2012 The Author(s)

How to use it How to use it

How to use it How to use it

How to use it How to use it

7. Drawing Markups Tools – for drawing shapes, lines and freeform

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