Dated July 13, 2013, and is a briefing paper by the Romania Energy Center.

The paper starts out at the beginning talking about the growing anti-fracking movement in Romania, and worried that Fracking opposition might tie up with opposition to the Rosia Montana project. Of course, anti-fracking opposition has grown since the paper was published, and is being tied to Rosia Montana.

Opposition to fracking began (according to the paper) in mid-2012. The government at that time was led by Mihai-Razvan Ungureanu, and the paper makes sure to note he had been former Director of Romania’s Foreign Intelligence Service. Sounds like the equivalent of the CIA. He was openly supportive of Chevron, and it was during his time that Chevron made the deals to have access for fracking.

There were generalized anti-government protests in 2012, thanks to austerity measures of the previous government. The anti-fracking stuff became part of that.

Rationale to let Chevron start exploration is said to be: The prestige of large investments by an American company – Economic boost from same – Romania’s natural gas should run out in 10-15 years, and they need to start preparing or else they’ll become dependent on Russian gas.

Ungureanu’s government didn’t survive a no-confidence vote, and Victor Ponta came into power. At first he allied with the Greens, and established a fracking moratorium. But, his actions since have been to embrace Chevron and give strong support to fracking.

The paper goes on to give a fairly clear summary of why’s and wherefore’s behind the need for fracking in Romania, and the protest movement against it.

At one time it had been available at http://www.roec.ro/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/Visan_SG-Public-Perception-July-2013_EN.pdf but that link no longer works.

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