Romania's Rural-Urban Divide: "Protests Won't Solve Anything. I Don't Know What They Want"

Euronews took a trip into rural Romania to find out what echoes, if any, the protests that took place in the country’s capital, Bucharest, had. At the beginning of this month, people from Bucharest and other cities protested against changes that the government wants to make in the penal code. These changes would directly affect the National Anticorruption Directorate (DNA) and give the Ministry of Justice control over prosecutors. The government also has tax reforms lined up that would burden both employees and businesses.

However, outside the capital, the above-mentioned problems are not perceived as that stringent. When asked about the demonstrations, the villagers give different answers in terms of their support for them or lack thereof, mirroring their sense of detachment and estrangement from what’s happening in Bucharest. These people are too poor and consumed by everyday problems to be concerned with such abstract things as corruption.

What the journalists found is basically what you see in other parts of Europe and the US too: that there’s a deep gap between urban and rural inhabitants, and that the two have different needs. And, just like elsewhere, in Romania too some politicians are exploiting exactly this gap to spread populist messages and to pit people against each other.