From Integrity to Intimidation: Romania’s Quiet Drift Toward NGO-Driven Censorship
Romania is once again being held up as a ‘success story’ in European compliance. This time, however, the applause does not come from democratic consolidation or economic reform but from something far more troubling: the seamless alignment between political power, publicly funded NGOs, and state media in the name of ‘integrity’ and ‘anti-corruption.’ What is presented as moral vigilance increasingly resembles a new architecture of control—one that functions less like democratic oversight and more like a pilot project for soft-power authoritarianism across Europe.