An EU commission of Alchemists

There is a quote, attributed to William H Gass, that says “The True Alchemist does not change lead into Gold, they change the world into words”. It is a metaphor about the power that a writer has to distill the essence of the world into words on a page. To some extent this is the power of the politician, to distill the essence of the world into policies, which are words on paper. In order to achieve this feat with success, there is a prerequisite of excellence on the part of the writer in the metaphor, or in the persona of the politician, in my parallel.

As politicians deal in words, which converted into polices and laws, can shape societies and peoples, they are wholly dependent on the trust, we, the voters, have in them.

Mrs Ursula von der Leyen, I have read with interest, just yesterday, your agenda for Europe “A union that strives for more”. In it I have found interesting, albeit very dry descriptions, of a stronger, unified Europe under a vision that, as you so clearly, put it requires the Commission to “defend our common values and uphold the rule of law”. You have also said that Fair taxation is a key priority for your commission, asking for everybody to pay their fair share. The most interesting point for me that also has bearing on the point I am making about the commission, is your whole chapter dedicated to “Protecting our European way of life” which you say you “want Europe to strive for more when it comes to protecting our citizens and our values. (…) A Europe that protects must also stand up for justice and for values. Nowhere is this more important than when it comes to the respect of the rule of law. Our European Union is a Community of Law. This community is the foundation of everything we have achieved and everything we still have to do. This is Europe’s hallmark.”

Now, my question to you is, how can you achieve this blissful European vision with a commission that has in its mixt people such our compatriot, Mrs Rovana Plumb? I shall not speak about other countries’ representatives, as this should be the prerogative of their voters, however I do want to understand how can somebody like Mrs Plumb help deliver your vision and help build the trust of the European citizens?

I ask this as Mrs. Plumb has quite a series of corruption dossiers at the National Anticorruption Directorate, link 1 link 2  which she managed to fend off after the Romanian Parliament, with the majority of her own party, voted to block the NAD (DNA in Romanian) and not to lift her parliamentary immunity, which forced the prosecutors to drop the case as by law they cannot investigate a member of the Parliament without the consent of the said Parliament(the links are in Romanian, however an instant translation in your browser will give you quite a jest of the context).

Maybe it was her financial abilities that recommended her, as she seems to be truly an alchemist, spending more money than she actually makes. This is according to her own, unforced, open Income letter she published on the parliament’s website: link 3. As you can see, she has managed to donate, from annual income of 139.289 Ron (approximatively 29.300 Euro) to her own party, 800.000 Ron (168.000 Euros) for PSD’s Euro parliamentary campaign. Never mind the 800.000 Euro credit she has at BRD which would require her to pay about 50000 Euros’ per year in installments  link 4(and this if she has a 3% APR, which in Romania does not exist, and has a 30 years loan, which, at her age, in Romania, is highly improbable too). Also, according to her own statement, in 2016 she donated to the party more than 65% of her income, so basically, her family managed to survive, a whole year, on less than 1000 Euro a month, pay the mortgage and the bills of the 700sqm house you can see in her own public statement. Link 5

I also think her stand on paying fair taxes and, more precisely, environmental taxes, should ring a sound of alarm. As you can see, a few years back, Mrs Rovana Plumb decided that paying the “emission tax” in Romania was too expensive, so she had one of her cars registered in Bulgaria, where the tax was lower.

I come back to the matter of trust that people must have in Politicians, so that they can transform the world into words and words into Polices.

What trust can we have in a Commission that sees a person such as Mrs. Rovana Plumb fit to fill the role of Commissioner for Transport and oversee a budget of tens of billions? What trust can we have in you, as the President of the Commision and your slogan “A New Push for European Democracy” when you accept the nomination of a person who has avoided prosecution through the use of a parliamentary technicality that allowed her to hide behind her majority? What trust can the average European citizen have in your vision of defending common values, when you, for all intents and purposes “hire” somebody that has had clear positions against the right of prosecutors to investigate the work of a cabinet minister?

How can we trust your intention of protecting the European citizen, of the respect of rule of law, when you have proposed a person that manages to pay 218.000 Euros a year out of a 29.300 Euros salary? (Note, for the readers, that, this is the salary of a member of the chamber of deputy in Romania)

How can we hope you will implement fair taxation when your commissioner registers a personal vehicle in another country, so not to pay the tax her government at the time was requiring regular Romanian citizens to pay?

Of course, my letter has only links to news articles, so facts must be checked. Hence, I put to you. Have you checked this allegations and news articles with Mrs Plumb yourself? Did she provide you with a satisfactory answer? If she has, we kindly ask you to provide us with that answer too, because the hundreds of thousands of Romanians that have been protesting to uphold the rule of law in Romanian over the past few years, have never had the honor of hearing it from Mrs Rovana Plumb’s mouth.