The narrative presented is fundamentally one of constrained governance and the corrosive effects of political division. The steelman of this argument is that Romania is attempting a difficult, albeit necessary, course correction to address a crippling debt burden – a situation exacerbated by global economic headwinds and a lack of broad-based economic dynamism. The underlying pattern here is the predictable tension between short-term political expediency (the pensioner handout) and long-term eco...