"I chose to live as a Christian, despite not sharing the Christian faith."
Foto Bogdan Dinca, Q Magazine
English

Exclusive Q Magazine. Alina Mungiu-Pippidi on the Brussels-driven anti-corruption crackdown. “The Intelligence Service was listening to everyone”

Why is Alina Mungiu-Pippidi the most cited Romanian political scientist abroad? Perhaps also because she was reading Shakespeare at the age of 10. An exclusive profile by Q Magazine.

IORGA’S HOUSE

After a fierce storm that brought down towering firs, tore the roofs off historic buildings, and shattered the hard-earned possessions of many, the sun finally breaks through over Sinaia. It’s a cool July morning, and Alina Mungiu-Pippidi greets us in the courtyard of Nicolae Iorga’s house—a charming 1918 residence built in traditional Romanian style, complete with a cerdac and a veranda.

She gestures toward the garden, where ancient conifers stretch skyward, then invites us inside. We admire the stoves adorned with playful squirrel motifs and antique furniture—pieces so rare that finding skilled craftsmen to restore them has become nearly impossible. From the walls, portraits of the legendary statesman Nicolae Iorga seem to watch over us.

We settle on the veranda, and the conversation begins to flow.

Imagine a sphere, and yourself slowly orbiting it. Light falls from different angles -left, right, above, below – sometimes oblique, sometimes direct. Only then do you begin to see the full spectrum: the highlights, the shadows, the nuances. The joys and disappointments of a person. Perhaps you glimpse them as a globe—a unified whole from which you try to extract fragments in an interview that can never fully capture the complexity of a human being.

Alina Mungiu-Pippidi grew up in a house with an astronomical observatory in Iași.

By the age of ten, she was reading Shakespeare. She graduated top of her class from the Faculty of Medicine and emerged as a powerful voice in Romanian society after the Revolution, and went on to teach at Harvard, Stanford, Princeton and Oxford. A scholar with extraordinary academic credentials—a PhD in social psychology—she is also a journalist, political scientist, public intellectual, and, beyond all the titles she’s earned, a woman with a razor-sharp wit.

Alina Mungiu-Pippidi has authored over 15 books and more than 100 scholarly articles. She has worked or collaborated on international projects in over 30 countries, including with the World Bank, European Commission, Transparency International, and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). With more than three decades of active involvement, she is recognised as a leading political analyst, civic activist, and coordinator of anti-corruption initiatives.

Who is Alina Mungiu-Pippidi in her own words?

“I’ve always been a person with many paths open to me, largely because I was gifted from an early age with a set of unusual talents. I could pursue artistic passions while also excelling in mathematics, and the choices I made throughout my life were shaped by the circumstances I found myself in.

Under Ceaușescu’s regime, I was forced to study medicine—there simply weren’t other options available in Romania at the time. Psychology and Sociology had been abolished, and Political Science didn’t exist. I had won the national History Olympiad and could have entered the History program without taking an entrance exam. But my parents warned me: history was just politics, and I’d spend my time quoting Ceaușescu. So, as a family, we agreed on medicine. That decision proved to be a pivotal one in my life.

Once you’re shaped as a scientist, it’s difficult to step outside that framework. Your mind becomes trained to think in a certain way.

The Revolution set me free and sent me in new directions.

The second major turning point in my life was leaving Romania. I had countless opportunities to go abroad. The first time I went to Harvard, I could have chosen to stay and pursue a second doctorate – my first, in social psychology, I had completed in Romania.

I initially arrived at Harvard on a Fulbright scholarship in Political Science. The university was generous to me. They extended a helping hand when I sparked controversy over reforming Romanian Television. That moment marked a complete shift in direction. At the time, public opinion in Romania supported the war in Yugoslavia, but I turned the page and embraced a Western orientation. Romanian Television was covering the conflict from the perspective of the irregular forces of Bosnian Serbs.

It was a fierce battle to pull the country out of the grip of national-communism, and I was surprised to see it resurface last year. I had believed we’d won that fight long ago—but clearly, it wasn’t so simple.

The stakes in Romania’s transformation were enormous. I saw our accession to the European Union as a victory in that war. That was when I seriously began to reflect—partly because of my age—on whether I wanted to pursue a different kind of career, beyond leading the anti-corruption coalition. By then, I had built a strong academic foundation and was widely published internationally.”

Alina Mungiu-Pippidi graduated from the Faculty of Medicine in Iași, later pursuing studies in political science and communication.

COMPELLED TO PERFORM

Alina Mungiu-Pippidi was born in Iași—a place she now calls “a distant memory.” Her family had fled from Basarabia. “My grandmother and her sister managed to escape; the rest of the family was wiped out by the Russians because they made the mistake of staying behind. The two women were engaged to Romanian officers, and during the brief grace period of the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact, they fled. They took with them a box of their mother’s jewellery. She had owned a hotel in Basarabia – she wasn’t a poor woman. With those jewels, they bought a house in Iași that had once belonged to Constantin Stere, the same house where the magazine Viața Românească was published. It was a beautiful home with an astronomical observatory, though it had been damaged during the war. It had a splendid park, which was later nationalised.”

In that house with the observatory, Alina and her brother, film director Cristian Mungiu—used to write slogans on the dome.

“It had just been freshly whitewashed, and at one point, I decided it was fitting to write literary quotes. We’d climb the walls and scribble lines from Hermann Hesse. It was magical—a life completely different from socialism. Very free, with liberal and highly educated parents. They weren’t aristocrats; they had gone to university during the communist regime.

My grandfather had served as an officer in the Royal Army. He taught me Latin and trigonometry. When he was expelled from the army, he supported himself by teaching Ancient Greek at the ecclesiastical seminary, which tells you something about the kind of military education that existed in Romania. He had been an orphan, and yet under the Romanian monarchy, he reached to Stalingrad.

I was given Shakespeare to read when I was just ten years old.

My grandfather and father were deeply involved in my education. They instilled discipline and a strong belief in values—sometimes with a touch of military rigour.

At times, they were quite demanding, with a philosophy centred entirely on grades and achievement. That’s why I was expected to compete in every academic Olympiad—and win. It’s also why I graduated at the top of my class.”

She received her PhD in Sociology from the University of Bucharest and later became a university professor and research scholar.

POLITICS AND FILM UNDER ONE ROOF

What is the sibling relationship like between two famous people?

“When my brother was growing up, I told him that those things weren’t what truly mattered. I encouraged him to focus on what he loved, to read whatever sparked his interest, and not to be as much of a perfectionist as I had been.

As a child, I used to do all his homework. I didn’t give him space to grow – I constantly nudged him, told him what to do, and he could be impossible.

In my younger years, I’d go out to the gate hoping for a moment of solitude, but he was always clinging to my skirts. Still, we were very close, and I’m glad I managed to pass on a few books to him. He belongs to a generation that didn’t read much, but he did—selectively, yes, but he read.

He discovered his artistic and organisational calling rather late. To make films, you need exceptional organisational skills. I had some influence on him until he was about 25, but everything he’s achieved in the film world is entirely his merit. He was far more focused than I ever was—he knew what he wanted and pursued it relentlessly. He still calls me for advice on political matters. I watch, like everyone else, and admire what he’s building.”

The film 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (2007) brought director Cristian Mungiu international acclaim after being selected by the jury of the Cannes Film Festival. Following awards from the International Federation of Film Critics and the French Ministry of Education, he won the festival’s highest honour—the Palme d’Or—on May 27, 2007. The film was also nominated for a Golden Globe.

In 2023, director Cristian Mungiu released the book Tania Ionașcu, my grandmother. A Bassarabian biography”. Photo credit: Virgil Simionescu, Inquam

“Even now, I try to do what I did when we were young—give him a book from time to time. His professional environment doesn’t have the same cultural depth as the one I come from. We’re part of different generations. My husband is a generation older than I am, but because of the way I was raised, I’ve always felt more aligned with his generation.”

In 2022, Professor Andrei Pippidi, PhD, attended the opening of the exhibition Nicolae Iorga – 150 Years Since His Birth”, organized by the National Museum of Romanian History (MNIR) in collaboration with the Nicolae Iorga Institute of History, the University of Bucharest, the National Archives of Romania, and the Diplomatic Archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Photo credit: Cristian Nistor, Agerpres

In 1993, Alina Mungiu married historian Andrei Pippidi, the grandson of Nicolae Iorga—a meeting that would profoundly shape her life. “I married someone who was deeply rooted in academia—not just because of his father and grandfather, but because he embodied that world.”

When I married him, he was the only Romanian with a doctorate from Oxford.

When I married him, he looked like a professor straight out of a film. He had a magnificent English dog, smoked a pipe, and spent 18 hours a day buried in archives, living in a house that felt distinctly British. Even the attic of the house we’re in now is filled with Times Literary Supplement issues from the 1920s.

Important politicians and leading intellectuals used to visit Nicolae Iorga. That’s how people were back then—like Iorga himself: a towering intellectual who also became Prime Minister. In those days, intellectuals could still rise to lead a country, which is rarely the case today.

That academic atmosphere had a profound influence on me. I remember that in the 1990s, I suddenly became a wildly popular editorialist at just 25 years old, despite lacking a formal education in political science. I had spent time at the American Library in Iași and the French lectorate, but I had read what others had curated. Reading Sartre’s Situations gave me a narrow perspective. That’s why Professor Ghiță Ionescu sent me to Harvard, to receive a proper political education.

Ghiță used to call me from Oxford to Harvard at six in the morning, unaware of the time difference—he was 80 years old. He was my mentor in political science. He’d ask, «Have you read more Aristotle?’ Then he’d scold me: ‘Oh no, you’re getting into polling and contemporary nonsense! You don’t need that—it’s just statistics and fluff. Read Aristotle!» It was a complete re-education.”

Why didn’t she become an artist herself? “Because I’ve always been drawn to things outside myself. Artists tend to be introspective, but I’m driven by curiosity about the world around me. My entire life has been shaped by research questions.

I’m a nonconformist, and in everything I’ve done—including my books published by Oxford and Cambridge—I’ve never followed conventional paths. I’ve always been radically original. My play The Evangelists (awarded by UNITER in 1993) is, in its way, just as original as my Cambridge book on corruption, which became a bestseller and a reference manual.”

MOST QUOTED

How does Alina Mungiu-Pippidi explain her status as the most cited political scientist in Romania, with over 7,000 citations according to Google Scholar?

“Scientific education instils objectivity. A scientific approach means you’re not selective—you don’t leave anything out. Even an argument that supports your opponent must be weighed. If someone you don’t particularly like says something relevant, you still must cite them. By applying these principles of objectivity, my career in political science took off.

I was raised as a scientist, and that’s how I came to publish in Nature, the world’s leading academic journal.”

She set aside her artistic pursuits because they distracted her and often required compromises. For her, the work of transforming the country felt far more important.

I discovered a niche of influence outside the realm of politics—one that, in truth, proved more powerful than politics itself.

She has delivered lectures and taught at leading institutions including Harvard, Oxford, Stanford, the European University Institute, Princeton, and the Hertie School of Governance in Berlin. She currently serves as Professor of Comparative Public Policy at Luiss Guido Carli University in Rome.

BREAKING AWAY FROM BĂSESCU

In 2009, she was invited to run for the European Parliament. Though courted by politicians, she chose not to accept. Can a country’s future be reshaped without stepping into politics?

“In 2009, I used the scandal involving Elena Băsescu as a teaching moment—to challenge patrimonialism and the rampant nepotism that was taking root in politics. And it wasn’t just about EBA; it also involved Mrs. Udrea. I was well aware of what was happening inside the PDL. Some insiders knew the situation and used me without any scruples. But I allowed it, because it served a greater purpose.

I received several offers to enter politics that never became public, including proposals related to the European Parliament. To be honest, I was never interested in that. The real fight was at home. We did everything we could, but the situation reached a very delicate stage. Băsescu was under siege in the government. Monica Macovei, a close friend of mine, was no longer Minister of Justice. She was implementing an anti-corruption plan that I had largely authored. I felt it was right to defend Băsescu—up to a point—because he helped us stand up to Sorin Ovidiu Vântu. These were dangerous figures for the Romanian state. Without Băsescu, we wouldn’t have had the strength to hold them accountable.

I didn’t support Băsescu just to see Vântu removed, only to have Udrea and her family take his place.

Faced with that situation, I chose to leave for Berlin. Băsescu would call me often, asking for advice. Our collaboration was informal, but there was a growing risk it might become official. When I heard that possibility being discussed, I received a call from an intermediary inviting me to meet Elena Udrea, a person I had never met. I had heard from people in Băsescu’s inner circle that she was, in fact, the gatekeeper. If you were to become one of the president’s closest collaborators, you had to meet with Mrs. Udrea, spend weekends with them, ride jet skis, and go to the same pool in Neptun.

I consulted my husband, Professor Dr. Andrei Pippidi, an academician and the grandson of Nicolae Iorga, and he said, «If that’s the alternative, you’re better off in Berlin.»

In Berlin, I entered a public competition and won, after going up against dozens of international candidates.”

Between a future tied to Elena Udrea and an international career, she chose to leave the country.

“It was a form of self-imposed exile. I found it increasingly difficult to remain in the Romanian university system. I had founded the Coalition for Clean Universities, was a friend to students, reformers, and unions—but I had also become something of a public enemy number one. I had already published more than all my colleagues combined, and when I left, my salary increased tenfold. But I didn’t leave for the money.”

Money has never been a primary concern for me.

“I left so I could be among equals. In Romania, there wasn’t a university capable of offering what I truly needed. People aren’t free to pursue their ambitions. There were deputy prime ministers who wanted to establish a school of public administration for me—a school where I would select, based on merit, those who would serve the state.

But I came to understand how limited political power is. At the time, I was part of a university deeply entrenched in nepotism. They all were. That’s when I decided to leave for Berlin.

I often wondered what my life might have looked like had I stayed—appearing night after night on television, defending Traian Băsescu, knowing that alongside the good, there was also Elena Udrea. Moreover, Băsescu would call with instructions about what to say. I tried to explain to him that I had never dictated to others in that way, and therefore I couldn’t accept being dictated to myself. I was being pushed in a direction I didn’t choose, and that’s why I opted for private life over a public political career.”

FROM BERLIN TO ROME

She recently joined Luiss Guido Carli University in Rome. Previously, the German state had awarded her the title of Professor of Democracy. She now teaches comparative public policy. The selection process took two years, largely because Italian institutions are sceptical of Romanian diplomas. In Berlin, she secured research grants totalling €10 million, and she currently coordinates another worth €6 million.

Despite a fulfilling academic career that has brought her well-deserved recognition in one of the most exclusive intellectual circles, she still carries regrets about Romania.

“I’ve always found solace in knowing there was nothing more I could have done. A woman couldn’t start a political party—not in Romanian society. Especially not someone like me, who wrote about politics after communism. We, the anti-communists, never had more than 50% of the vote.

We democratised—but alongside the communists. We even convinced them to join the democratic process, and that led to countless compromises. We democratised together with the former secret police.

I was fortunate to witness an extraordinary world. I experienced an America that was something entirely different, and I never imagined I’d live to see what it has become today.”

In 2025, we lost a country: the United States of America.

Institutions that once played a vital role in our democratisation—such as the Voice of America and Freedom House, are either shutting down or on the verge of disappearing. The U.S. is undergoing a radical transformation, and it will no longer champion democratic values around the world. Had this revolution occurred 25 years ago, we wouldn’t exist as we do today. We succeeded in making progress from the ground up because the international context was favourable. Without external support for democratisation, Nicu Ceaușescu might have seemed like a decent president compared to his father. Then someone else—a nephew, perhaps—would have taken over, and that would have been our path.

My generation did everything it could. We had windows of opportunity—extraordinary moments that allowed us to act.

There are two kinds of countries: those whose elites know what must be done and go to great lengths to do it, as we did, and those that fall into regression.

I faced 20 lawsuits from ministers of the Interior, Defence, and Justice when I led the Coalition for a Clean Parliament in 2004.

What I regret is that, in Romania, when we believed we had turned the page, it turned out we hadn’t. I didn’t let myself be silenced by Rodica Stănoiu, Ioan Talpeș, and others who were ministers and heads of intelligence services in 2004—only to hear, in 2024, people saying it doesn’t matter if we leave the European Union.”

I am not opposed to those who criticise the European Union, as I have always stood firmly for freedom of expression. People must be free to voice their concerns and speak openly about what they find unacceptable.

The ease with which people, during this election, claimed indifference about whether Romania remains in the European Union or leaves it was deeply unsettling. They seem to forget that the generation before them made real sacrifices.

I spent years working on “Clean Romania,” when I could have been writing or pursuing other meaningful work. It feels like 1990 all over again, when people resented us simply for being educated. Back then, I heard chants of “Death to students! Death to intellectuals!

When Mr. Iliescu first came to Iași, I stood to his left. He looked out at the packed square, and within seconds of beginning his speech, he pulled out a sheet of paper and declared: “In this city, there’s a rag called Opinia Studențească, where I’m unfairly criticised.” A group of agitators brought to the front began shouting: “Death to them! Death to them! Death to the students!”

Alina Mungiu-Pippidi has lived through it all—from the Revolution to the Mineriads, and even the annulment of elections.

“After asking people to vote for Iohannis, I’m done making recommendations. That’s it—I’m retired. Goodbye and farewell!”

She regrets not having more time, as she’s an exceptionally productive person. She can write a book in three months. She wrote the play The Evangelists in just three weeks. “I should have written more plays, but to do that, I would have needed to keep part of my life connected to the theatre—and that didn’t happen.”

Humour has helped her navigate life’s most difficult and tense moments.

“My favourite playwright is George Bernard Shaw. These days, all sorts of people call me, now that the defence industry is expanding, asking if we can build an anti-corruption framework around it.

Are you joking? The defence industry is the very definition of corruption. Wars are waged so the defence industry can profit.

I’ve always found comfort in ironic playwrights, and humour has been my refuge. It helps when working with students—you have to tell them hard, realistic truths, but I always try to deliver those truths with a touch of humour. Science is science, and we must always speak about what is most likely to happen.”

A recent event at the Romanian Athenaeum, organised by the Grand National Lodge and awarding €10,000 prizes in science and politics, proved that Romania still has elites—even if they seem to have disappeared.

Yet Alina Mungiu-Pippidi notes that despite the presence of valuable individuals, populists are far more numerous.

“Populism has dominated Romania for the past ten years. And it’s not just the populists we’ve fought against in elections—populism has become mainstream. Anyone who believes that cutting the salaries of the nine Constitutional Court judges will solve the country’s financial problems is a populist. Anyone who claims that eliminating 100–200 parliamentary seats will fix the budget is a populist. Populism is the ideology that says elites are corrupt, the people are inherently good, and that the country needs a leader with a direct connection to the people.

Twenty years ago, I conducted surveys where people said democracy was good—but they hated political parties, Parliament, and everything democratic. I couldn’t understand what was going on in their minds. They didn’t want a coup or military generals like in Latin America. One day, I held a focus group and asked them directly. They told me they wanted to abolish political parties, elect the president directly, and have him appoint experts. It’s the same today.

Political parties have done nothing to earn credibility or become more representative. Even the newer ones, like USR, quickly turn into cliques with vested interests.

The engine of a political party is the promise of positions. Maybe Iliescu was right back in 1990 when he said that parties were outdated and that organising them— especially after communism—was incredibly difficult.

For the past twenty years, I’ve advocated for ending direct presidential elections. That’s why I cooperated with Băsescu and Iohannis—in the hope that something from our agenda for societal transformation would resonate with them: building meritocracy and rational governance.

During Adrian Năstase’s tenure, I used to publish the debts of all companies. Today, that’s no longer possible.

I keep urging Bolojan’s government to publish a list of the top one hundred VAT debtors—with one column for private sector companies and another for state-owned ones. Transparency is in decline. When I left, under Băsescu, preferential procurement in Romania had dropped below 50%. Since the pandemic, the country has gone in the opposite direction.”

She never considered running for president—not just because “women are from Venus and men are from Mars,” but because she has never harboured political ambitions.

Starting a political party was never part of her plan either, simply because she lacks the flexibility required of a political leader. Her life has been shaped by the rigour of a scientist and the uncompromising nature of a reformer.

“When Monica Macovei founded her party, I told her she’d regret it in three months—and she regretted it in three weeks. If I had joined a political party, we’d have been fighting within two weeks. I don’t tolerate nonsense; nothing gets past me. But political action can exist outside political parties—and that’s the path I chose.”

She offers a metaphor to explain her view of civic engagement: “When you walk into a church in Italy, there’s often a Michelangelo masterpiece inside. But the church has no money, and the artwork isn’t illuminated—it sits in darkness. There’s a small box where you can insert a one-euro coin to turn on the light. And you’ll see twenty people standing in the dark, staring at Michelangelo, waiting for someone else to pay to illuminate it. That’s why collective action often fails—because if one person invests, everyone else benefits without contributing.

It’s often in human nature to remain in the dark, hoping someone else will come along and turn on the light so they don’t have to invest anything themselves. That’s what I tell everyone: you must be the one to make that initial investment.”

NICUȘOR DAN WAS NEVER MEANT TO BE PRESIDENT.

Along the Sinaia–Bucharest–Berlin–Rome axis, one can see the reality: “We’ve just come through elections that have divided society—splitting it between pro-Western and pro-sovereigntist camps.”

According to Alina Mungiu-Pippidi, Romania’s current crisis was triggered by Trump’s victory.

“We were doing just fine—until he won. George Simion had settled down by November. He’s a young man who tried to find his place within traditional parties, but they weren’t open enough and failed to recognise his talent as a communicator. This time, we were destabilised by external forces. At this moment, we need a few mature and capable individuals who can unify and sustain an alliance. We achieved something remarkable in the elections—we managed to mobilise. The differences between ‘us’ and ‘them’ are largely artificial. Many people in our pro-European camp will end up disappointed. Ultimately, the broader international context remains deeply unfavourable.”

Out of all the available options, I can vouch for Nicușor Dan’s honesty. Beyond that, he was never meant to be president. Nicușor Dan was never interested in building political parties. His sole focus has always been on becoming the mayor of the capital.

We’ve failed to educate the public, and things have steadily worsened since the pandemic. Just look at this year’s baccalaureate exam—anyone can be Minister of Education if the curriculum still includes Zamfirescu’s plays and Baltagul. Students aren’t taught anything engaging, relatable, or universally human. Instead, they’re exposed to narrow Romanian content, poorly selected and outdated. What we need is a large-scale campaign for educational reform.

A staggering percentage of the population believes that the Dacians were more important than the Romans in world history. That alone reflects the profound failure of our education system.

We could learn from the Turks, who produce historical television series to engage and educate. That’s exactly what we should be doing. Teachers are forcing students to memorise literary commentaries that make no sense or giving them exams as if they were training to be philologists. Language should be taught to unlock meaning – not to turn students into linguists. We’ve failed in education, and we’re nowhere near getting back on track.”

Alina Mungiu-Pippidi has no social media presence.

She maintains only a LinkedIn profile, where she writes exclusively in English and solely about her academic work. Her network is highly influential, spanning institutions from the U.S. State Department to the European Central Bank. She takes hundreds of thousands of photographs—some of which have appeared in The Economist—but she doesn’t have an active Instagram account where she shares content. “We either do what China does and ban social media entirely, or we adopt a mix of censorship and activism, which isn’t so different from how traditional journalism evolved in the 19th century. The press began with dreadful pamphlets in Paris and London. It took censorship and serious investment to create a more civilised media landscape. We’re in a similar phase now. Anyone investing in educating people through YouTube or other platforms—bravo! Regulation is essential. Algorithms should not reward violence.

In Germany, they fund an entire workforce to act as internet police, under a law called the ‘Anti-Hate Law,’ born out of the trauma of Nazism. Another approach is to require platforms to self-regulate. We see online lynchings, just as we see valuable contributions. Media are simply tools. In Mexico, bloggers are fighting drug cartels. People are doing extraordinary things through social platforms.

Ten years ago, the number of Facebook accounts in a country was a measure of how well it could uphold civic integrity. It reflected people’s ability to organise, protest, and advocate—a measure of collective action. Today, Facebook is no longer what it once was.

Banning social media—trying to put the genie back in the bottle—is nearly impossible. We won’t be able to do it.”

Alina Mungiu-Pippidi is a prominent collaborator with leading organisations such as Transparency International and the World Bank. She founded and currently directs the European Research Centre for Anti-Corruption and State-Building, a hub for advancing good governance and institutional integrity. She is also the founder of România Curată (“Clean Romania”), a civic platform committed to promoting transparency and accountability in public administration. In addition, she serves as the founder and president of the Romanian Academic Society (SAR), a key think tank focused on policy reform and democratic development.

THE SURVEILLANCE STATE

Inevitably, we arrive at the topic of anti-corruption—one of our interlocutor’s most prominent public causes.

She doesn’t know how to answer questions like who or what could compensate for cases such as that of Ioan Oltean, a member of the Democratic Party. He was accused of taking €700,000 one night in the courtyard of a church in Ilfov, only for the case to be dismissed five years later—not even sent to trial—because “the act did not exist.” Still, she acknowledges that the public spectacle of handcuffs served a purpose, and that external pressure was essential.

“Our anti-corruption campaign was supported by Brussels. Part of its goal was to make the handcuffs rattle, because Romania had a deeply entrenched culture of impunity. Anyone in power could run people over with a car and face no consequences. One pivotal moment was when we managed to remove General Gabriel Oprea, who was speeding at over 100 km/h at night with an unauthorised escort. An innocent young man died.

By 2009, two-thirds of county capital mayors and just as many county council presidents were under investigation by the National Anticorruption Directorate (DNA). It was closer to 100%.

We needed to set examples, to instil fear, and to push back against the tide of corruption.

Where did we go wrong? Judges were reluctant to convict anyone. I witnessed scenes where judges said, ‘Let the public vote Adrian Năstase out—why should we convict him? It’s political, and we don’t want to get involved.’

Then officials from Brussels would come, meet with the full panel of the Supreme Court, and say, ‘You have new laws—apply them.’

That’s when the Romanian Intelligence Service (SRI) began wiretapping everyone – the Appellate Courts, the High Court. The law allowed both national security warrants and anti-corruption warrants. Ideally, someone suspected of corruption should be wiretapped under an anti-corruption warrant. But they didn’t stick to those legal boundaries. They wiretapped judges across all courts, based on the assumption that trials were being fixed—a plausible idea, but it shouldn’t have been done under national security provisions.

This concentrated power is in the hands of a few. A surveillance state was recreated—one where everything about everyone is known, where each person has a vulnerability, and a few are selected each month to go to prison. The rest are blackmailed.

Daniel Morar was honest and competent—he cleaned up corruption in football. But if you look today, it’s unclear how many of those achievements have endured.

In Romania, corruption was existential. Many of those acquitted weren’t necessarily innocent; they benefited because legal practitioners narrowed the rules.

Dragnea failed to pass his major legislative packages—he had big ambitions—but he still managed to push through some procedural changes, like altering the composition of the High Court panels. Those procedural tweaks helped many escape conviction.

There were also politically motivated trials.

For example, when Ponta was prosecuted for allegedly having Sebastian Ghiță pay for a dinner with Tony Blair—that was absurd. There were plenty of harassment cases. One that still embarrasses me was the trial of Markó Béla (former UDMR president), accused of taking an advance from a Hungarian publishing house. It happened just before a crucial coalition vote, and suddenly Markó Béla—a man of exceptional integrity—was being investigated by DNA. There were several such cases, and they were deeply troubling.

Another example is the case of Horia Georgescu, the first president of the National Integrity Agency. Only in the former Soviet Union could the head of one anti-corruption agency end up arresting the head of another.

Horia Georgescu investigates Klaus Iohannis. Iohannis wins the presidency, and then the former head of the National Integrity Agency (ANI) is arrested. I’m not defending Horia Georgescu—I had never even heard of him. He’s one of those countless “trusted” individuals who are completely ineffectual yet still end up as someone’s goto person. But the way the president of ANI was swept up by the DNA and landed in prison is entirely abnormal. Or consider the case of Iohannis’s national security advisor, who was taken in by the DNA in the third week after Iohannis arrived at Cotroceni—after the intelligence services had assured him, ‘Yes, sir, he’s fine.’ Then one day, the police show up and arrest him right across the hall from the president’s office.

These are displays of force that, unfortunately, have made presidents and political leaders overly deferential—so much so that they’ve abandoned the bold reform agendas they promised us when we supported them during their election campaigns.

A VICTORY AGAINST RUSSIA?!

France, Germany, and the United Kingdom have declared their commitment to supporting Ukraine until it achieves victory in its war against Russia. Recently, however, the focus has shifted—from talk of winning the war to calls for a “just and lasting peace.” We’re curious how political scientist Alina Mungiu-Pippidi defines “victory” and “just and lasting peace,” and whether the goals and interpretations behind these terms are truly aligned among Germany, France, and the UK.

“I don’t know who seriously believes there’s a real chance of victory against Russia. That idea needs a clear definition, and I haven’t heard anyone provide one.

I want to write a book titled War or Peace, where I lay out the full range of arguments—what currently supports war, including war to build a more durable peace, and conversely, what supports peace.

At this point, it’s too late not to arm yourself. But at the same time, only a fool invests in defence without a coherent plan. Historically, economies tend to grow after wars—periods of militarisation are rarely profitable.

The Russians are what they are. I’ll give you an example: in Sinaia, where I live, bears come to the dumpsters every night. I can’t say it’s the bear’s fault. Is the bear to blame if it attacks someone and mauls them? Humans are supposed to be more intelligent. We need to start thinking about how to manage the bear.”

We made mistakes with Russia. But that doesn’t mean we can admit it right now. You can’t admit you were wrong when it comes to Russia—especially not with Putin.

It was a massive strategic error to push NATO’s borders beyond the limits that Russia had previously agreed to with the West. We drove the Russians toward rearmament. Maybe they would have rearmed anyway—but we have no way of knowing. I don’t think they would have.

I know Crimea, I know the Caucasus—I saw them when they were stable. Today, nuclear submarines are once again patrolling the Black Sea.

Let’s not pretend that the policy leading to the invasion of Ukraine is solely Russia’s fault, or that we couldn’t have taken steps to prevent it. We should have considered how to preserve the reasonable relations we once had—like when Putin called President Bush after September 11, 2001, offering full support. At that time, we all shared a common enemy: Islamist extremism.

The fact that Russia and China have now aligned against us—and that we failed to prevent it—says a lot.

We behaved like overconfident roosters crowing from the edge of the fence. Weak foreign policy leadership sent some of the worst possible signals.

We invited Ukraine and Georgia to join NATO—an obvious overreach. It was clear this would never happen, and all it did was provoke Russia.

We also projected weakness. In Syria, we threatened strikes. In Afghanistan, we withdrew and left our allies in chaos. This exact mix of signals from the U.S. is what led us to the situation we face today. Is Trump the genius who will get us out of this mess? He’s right that those before him made serious mistakes—but he started incredibly clumsy and naïve, even claiming he had already achieved peace.

It would have been ideal for us to contribute original ideas. The marketplace of ideas isn’t overcrowded. This kind of thinking should come from us—if we can manage to break free from the past. But I have my doubts. At present, Romania lacks a foreign policy establishment where open and honest discussions can take place. All we’ve had is anti-Russian propaganda, which might have been effective if it had resonated. But as the recent elections showed… I was genuinely shocked.

Propaganda can sometimes backfire. It’s far better to have an open debate, where opposing arguments are dismantled with stronger reasoning. It’s easy to demonstrate that Russia is not a desirable country—it invades its neighbours—while Germany is desirable, given that people walk thousands of kilometres just to live there.

We’ve silenced debate, resorted to simplistic labels, and lost the capacity to engage in meaningful dialogue—let alone to imagine real solutions.

I’m not asking how to increase defence spending next year. I’m asking how we can restore the Black Sea free of nuclear submarines and threats, where mines aren’t drifting toward Costinești. But there’s no one to have that conversation with.

People are tired of hearing stereotypes—like the idea that we must fight the Russians forever.”

Between 1996 and 1999, Romania advocated for a strategic partnership with Germany. At the time, Germany was seen as the most important European power after the Cold War, and in Bucharest, it was said that Romania marked the easternmost point of German cultural influence. Globally, Romania aimed to—and largely succeeded in—establishing a strategic partnership with the United States. But at the European level, the goal was Germany. That partnership, however, never truly materialised—unlike others that lacked strategic alignment between the parties. Why? What was missing? “Brains,” says Alina Mungiu-Pippidi.

“Romania is a country where foreign policy is completely brainless. We don’t have strategic vision. We have a few good diplomats, but they lack the courage to speak up.

As we’ve seen, elections can bring about spectacular changes. Friedrich Merz, now Chancellor of Germany, is well-positioned. I never had any confidence in Olaf Scholz—he’s weak, vulnerable, and did what he could under difficult circumstances, but he paid the price for every decision. Merz understands something essential: that Europe must learn to manage without relying on the United States and fundamentally change direction, as he’s doing. It’s remarkable and admirable. Whether Europe will be better off with a rearmed Germany—that remains to be seen.

We’ve always had strong relations with Germany. Iohannis received the Charlemagne Prize—wasn’t he practically German? Major German investors are active in Romania.

Germany was deeply entangled with Russia. The Russians have gas and aspire to a Western lifestyle. Berlin is full of Russians—they’ve bought luxury homes, they want to buy art, live on the French Riviera, and be accepted. If you have money, you want to spend it in high society, not stay in Siberia. The Russians want to sell us gas, and the Germans believed that by buying it, they could keep Russia peaceful—buy their gas, sell them Mercedes. That’s a legitimate point of view, not a criminal one.

The alternative—going in and wiping out Russia so it never again exists as a major power—was never a real option.

You can’t rewind history. It no longer matters whose fault it was. What matters now is containing the Ukrainian conflict and establishing a clear frontier between Europe and Russia—because that’s what this is about. It’s not about the border between Ukraine and Russia.

Will it be like the Cold War—a wall on both sides? Will we dig trenches, point missiles at each other, buy Iron Dome systems? Or is there a plan to de-escalate? These are the big questions.

Trump’s merit is that he came in from outside the system and shook things up. But it’s naïve to think that inviting Putin back into the G8 would impress him. Putin realised from the start that Trump lacked the credibility to deliver on his promises. The West only succeeds when the U.S. and Europe act together. And right now, they’re not aligned.

We’re oriented toward France—but how long will Macron be around? Who comes next? If Macron changes the electoral system, the National Rally could come to power. The only thing protecting France right now is its electoral system. He must not change it—it needs to remain a two-round system.

When Băsescu kept asking me what kind of electoral system we should adopt, I told him: the two-round system. If someone truly dangerous rises, we can all unite in the second round against them. But if Marine Le Pen comes to power, what do we do then? You can’t put all your eggs in one basket.

LOOKING AHEAD

Imagining Romania three years from now, when the next elections will take place, Alina Mungiu-Pippidi argues that a new political movement must be launched this summer and ready by Christmas—because the parties currently in power risk losing the upcoming elections.

“There must be someone who has not been part of the government and who holds a clear, unwavering pro-European stance. The real question is: what forces within Romanian society can be mobilised to build this alternative? Strong political parties are formed from multiple associations that can unite under a broad umbrella. I’m convinced there are already people thinking about this—those who usually know how to build things.”

Hypocrisy comes at a cost—and it’s always a steep one.

Imagine having a Foreign Minister with no qualifications, who fires a young woman in New York simply because she’s the protégé of a politician—despite also lacking any qualifications herself. That young woman holds a low-level position. So, what does it say when someone unqualified dismisses someone else who’s equally unqualified, and calls it meritocracy? People see through that.

There’s always an electoral reckoning. And how many more times can you wheel out Victor Rebengiuc at 90 years old? You can’t keep going to the well forever.

The real question is: who will build this new political movement? The middle class—the one that refuses to be taxed even slightly more, as it should be, and instead prefers to spend freely on houses and cars? These are people who have money, are proud of it, and feel no solidarity with the rest of the population. They fail to notice that in the recent elections, the most disadvantaged regions voted against the EU.

The Romania deprived of opportunity voted against the Romania that enjoys it.

The Romanian Academic Society was the first to propose the flat tax in Romania. But the flat tax is no longer truly flat—its original purpose was to apply uniformly to all forms of income, including dividends and profits, so that people couldn’t shift money between categories. Its role was to help combat tax evasion.

Today, the underground economy is thriving once again. When it comes to income, we intended to strengthen the middle class, which was previously too thin. A solid middle class is the foundation of any democracy. And now we have one—we saw them protesting in Victory Square, arriving in the latest VW trucks. At this point, they, too, need to contribute a bit more.

I don’t believe the sovereigntists will remain a single unified camp. But given the threat posed by Russian-style activism—which is highly dangerous—we must be prepared for anything. One way to be prepared is to build a pro-European alternative that has never been part of the government.”

Alina Mungiu-Pippidi is the playwright behind the acclaimed and provocative drama The Evangelists, which stirred significant controversy in the 1990s for its bold and unconventional exploration of religious themes.

UNKNOWN

What People Don’t Know About Alina Mungiu-Pippidi

“My life is filled with joy. I live in a home overflowing with books collected across generations, shelves of CDs, and music from all corners of the world echoing through the rooms. Thanks to my husband’s influence, baroque music has become our shared passion for over two decades. We listen exclusively to performances on period instruments—we even have the complete works of Handel.

I also have a deep love for photography. If I ever published the photos I’ve taken around the world, people would discover someone who has been truly privileged— someone who’s seen the world through the lens of a remarkable education. But I simply don’t have the time to share these things with others.

Privately, Alina Mungiu-Pippidi leads a profoundly aesthetic life, distinct from her public and civic persona.

I’m not a religious person, not someone who prays.

I’m an agnostic. One of the first areas I educated myself in was religion—evidenced by my play The Evangelists, which is often misinterpreted as anti-Christian. It’s not. It’s the work of someone intellectually sophisticated.

My husband prays for me, and I believe I deserve some credit for sustaining a marriage between an agnostic and an Orthodox believer. We’ve visited temples of every kind around the world, and when we found ourselves in unfamiliar places during Christmas or Easter, we embraced an ecumenical spirit. We attended Anglican and Catholic services. We’ve lived a life marked by deep respect for the Church and for religion.

When I was very young, I read a French philosopher who left a lasting impression on me—a Jesuit priest. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin’s The Phenomenon of Man is the book that best reflects my way of thinking. It’s something between religion and science fiction. The book suggests that Jesus will save us—if we do enough to deserve it.

Imagine a vast temporal loop in which He may rise again—or may not—depending on whether we fulfil our part completely. Suddenly, you find yourself inside that loop where the miracle happens. But there are many other loops where nothing makes sense, because things didn’t work out.

I’ve chosen to live as a Christian without Christian faith. I don’t claim that everything will turn out fine, but I’ve told myself: whatever depends on me, I will do.

And although this portrait may seem to end with the absence of God, it remains the portrait of a person guided by principles and morality. In fact, one might say that while the religious person begins by believing in God, the scientist ends by believing in Him.

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