Back Home - AUR's new political marketing operation

The "Back Home” program, solemnly announced by AUR as a response to the "failure of the Romanian state towards the Diaspora” and launched on January 24, is, at this point, neither a program, nor a public policy, nor even a defined project, but an emotionally packaged political marketing operation, around a vague promise and a platform for collecting personal data. Beyond the patriotic rhetoric, the invocation of Unity Day and the mobilizing messages about "Romanians abroad”, what actually exists is an online form that gathers detailed information about the life, options, incomes, plans and vulnerabilities of Romanians in the Diaspora, without AUR offering any measure, any funding, any administrative infrastructure or any institutional guarantee in return.

AUR talks about a "one-stop shop for the Diaspora”, but it does not explain how this shop works, in what legal framework, with what staff, with what budget and with what real powers. In the absence of any executive power, the party led by George Simion assumes a role that it can only exercise symbolically, and the promise that it will "manage cases step by step” remains a campaign formula, not an operational commitment. From the analysis of the data contained in the inapoiacasa.ro platform, we found that it does not offer solutions, but asks questions; it does not solve problems, but inventories them; it does not build return roads, but gathers answers about what should exist, someday, for people to return.

Romanians in the Diaspora are asked to say whether they would return to the country "if the right conditions arose”, what are the reasons for not returning, what salary they would accept, where they would like to work, what education they have, what professional experience, what business plans, what needs they have for children, for health, for retirement. They are even asked to upload their CV. Everything is formulated as an exercise in political empathy, but, in essence, it is a disguised sociological research, carried out for free, with raw personal data voluntarily provided by people who receive in return only the vague promise that "they are not alone”. The question is who guarantees that the personal data and CVs collected from Romanian citizens in the Diaspora will be protected according to the relevant European regulation - GDPR - and will not be used by those in AUR for other purposes?

This approach is strikingly reminiscent of the promise of apartments for 35,000 euros, also launched as a saving solution and later abandoned in the area of explanations, reinterpretations and justifications. And then, as now, AUR relied on emotion, hope and real frustration of people, without having a feasible mechanism behind it, but it collected tens of thousands of personal data of citizens who wanted such housing. The difference is that, this time, the party is no longer explicitly promising something impossible to deliver immediately, but is collecting data on what it should promise in the future.

There is currently no concrete measure for the repatriation of Romanians, no incentive program, no fiscal scheme, no budget allocation, no housing policy, no administrative reform undertaken. There is only a discourse about "state failure” and a platform that shifts responsibility onto the shoulders of citizens: tell us what you want, and we will transform these answers into a "strategy”. In other words, it is not AUR that comes up with a program for the Diaspora, but the Diaspora is invited to write, through online forms, the program that AUR will later talk about.

In political terms, "Back Home” is not a public policy, but a database. It is not a governing instrument, but a campaign instrument. It is not a response to the failure of the state, but an exploitation of this failure for electoral capital. And until AUR can show something more than a form, the promise remains exactly that: a promise without coverage, beautifully packaged, emotionally, patriotically, but devoid of substance, just like other spectacular offers that have produced headlines, not results.