Ioana Lupea: “The name of the person who will lead Russia, from this day on, is nothing but a detail”.

The symbolic power that the Russian President Medvedev has detained won’t interfere with the real power that stands in the hands of Russia’s Prime Minister, Vladimir Putin, for as long as there is a single political purpose: regaining Russia’s status through energetic means.

The only thing that has changed in Russia since Peter the Great is that the power isn’t held by a despot, but by a two-headed authoritarian regime. After the simulated elections, when the president assigned by Putin has formally received the votes, one can only wonder, like the Marquis de Custine: did this nation’s character created czarism or is it the autarchy that which has built Russian character?

For any citizen of the free world, the choice made by Russians yesterday is a mystery. Why would a nation freely choose to live without freedom and truth.

The answer that the Marquis de Custine gave is just as current as it was over a century ago. The Russians vindicate themselves thinking that the power they endure favors their own aspirations to power.

Those who think that the expansion of liberal democracy and capitalist globalization have subdued the Russians “dreams of arrogance and the hope to dominate” is wrong.

Today, just like a hundred years ago, Russia believes that czarism is her advantage over a European continent that is consumed by liberalism, and that will be easily subdued by sowing the seeds of discord.

What else is Hungary’s experience than a seed of discord? Hungary became a part of Russia’s plans to “gaspormise” (term used by a number of annalists) Europe’s energetic security. Or should I mention the price that Bucharest pays for gas? Politicians, businessmen and annalists urge to a “serious reassessing of our relations with Russia”. The former democrat Minister of Defence, Ioan Mircea Pascu, who is cited above, deplored our gullibility in thinking that the European Union will bring us an advantage in our relationship with Russia, during a debate organized by BBC and Hotnews. That is nothing but a subversive message, which I also heard from Romanian politicians or businessmen like Dan Voiculescu, Dinu Patriciu and Cozmin Gusa.

Will the gas price become an electoral spike? We’ll see about that. Traian Basescu, the man who, for the first time in the post-revolution history of Romania has played the foreign affairs on a single card, the Euro-Atlantic one, is stubbornly acused, against the best interest of the Romanian people, of keeping the gas price high. In the context of Kosovo’s independence and the Russian elections, some public speakers will try to make us friends with Russia, in a discreet plea for social protection.

And if Russia will gain influence through natural resources with the help of DmitrI Medvedev and Vladimir Putin, why shouldn’t we trip along?

Hungary, who refused the Nabucco project, that would have sustained Europe’s energetic independence and that was backed by the US, for the Russian-Bulgarian South Stream project, seems to advance. The two-faced policy that characterizes the socialist Government from Budapest has brought a deal with Medvedev and Putin, just two days before the Russian elections. Thus it’s likely that such a decision would isolate Hungary from NATO and the European Union.

No matter how small the gas price is, their cost is too high. A price too high for Romania to afford it.