{"id":3921,"date":"2025-02-28T09:00:41","date_gmt":"2025-02-28T09:00:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ofero.news\/?p=3921"},"modified":"2025-02-28T09:00:41","modified_gmt":"2025-02-28T09:00:41","slug":"romania-downgraded-to-hybrid-regime-in-new-democracy-index","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ofero.news\/?p=3921","title":{"rendered":"Romania downgraded to ‘hybrid regime’ in new democracy index"},"content":{"rendered":"

Romania has been downgraded to a “hybrid regime” in the 2024 Democracy Index<\/a> published by The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) on Thursday, February 27. Its score dropped from 6.45 to 5.99, pushing it out of the “flawed democracy” category and down 12 places to rank 72nd globally, between Moldova and Papua New Guinea, Agerpres<\/a> reported.<\/p>\n

Romania\u2019s decline comes amid a broader global trend, however, with the index\u2019s overall score falling from 5.23 in 2023 to 5.17 in 2024 (on a 0-10 scale), marking a continued deterioration in democratic governance worldwide.<\/p>\n

According to the report, more than one-third (39.2%) of the world population live under authoritarian rule. Sixty countries are now classified as \u201cauthoritarian regimes,\u201d an increase of one compared with the 2023 index and an increase of eight from a decade ago in 2014.<\/p>\n

The categories that have recorded the biggest deterioration since 2008 are\u00a0civil liberties<\/em>\u00a0(-1.00 on a 0-10 scale) and\u00a0electoral process and pluralism<\/em>\u00a0(-0.66); however, the global average score for\u00a0political participation<\/em>\u00a0improved by 0.74 between 2008 and 2024.<\/p>\n

A key factor in Romania\u2019s downgrade was the annulment of its presidential election in 2024. Allegations of Russian interference, illegal social media tactics, and campaign finance violations prompted the Constitutional Court to cancel the election and\u00a0call for a new vote.<\/p>\n

The EIU report notes that the controversial election annulment directly affected Romania\u2019s score for electoral process and pluralism, now at 8.25.\u00a0<\/p>\n

However, the downgrade was not solely due to this incident. Public confidence in political parties and government institutions had already been declining, contributing to a lower score for the “functioning of government” (5.36), Agerpres reported. Corruption levels also worsened based on comparative global assessments.<\/p>\n

Looking ahead, Romania\u2019s democratic standing could fall further in 2025, depending on how authorities handle the rescheduled presidential elections.<\/p>\n

Elsewhere, Western Europe has the highest index score of any region, at 8.38, and was the only one to improve its overall score in 2024. The UK improved its score, moving up the rankings to 17th. France\u2019s score fell just below the 8.00 threshold to qualify as a \u201cfull democracy\u201d and was thus downgraded to a \u201cflawed democracy\u201d in 2024.<\/p>\n

The US score remained unchanged in 2024, continuing to be classified as a \u201cflawed democracy,\u201d ranked 28th. \u201cIt remains to be seen if historical checks and balances will remain in force and serve to improve or worsen the US\u2019s ranking in 2025,\u201d the EIU said.<\/p>\n

The Nordic countries (Norway, Iceland, Sweden, Finland, and Denmark) continue to dominate the Democracy Index rankings, taking five of the top seven spots.<\/p>\n

irina.marica@romania-insider.com<\/em><\/p>\n

(Photo source: Inquam Photos\/George Calin)<\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Romania has been downgraded to a “hybrid regime” in the 2024 Democracy Index published by The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) on Thursday, February 27. Its score dropped from 6.45 to 5.99, pushing it out of the “flawed democracy” category and down 12 places to rank 72nd globally, between Moldova and Papua New Guinea, Agerpres reported. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3921","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ofero.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3921","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ofero.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ofero.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ofero.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3921"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ofero.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3921\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ofero.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3921"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ofero.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3921"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ofero.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3921"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}