An important Romanian businessman: “When the Government complains that we don't have successful Romanian companies abroad, let them see what unfair competition they create here”
A country's champion companies are born at home “if there is a fair competitive environment” and only then emerge strengthened in the world, an investor explained to us, one of the biggest that Romania has ever had abroad.
The Romanian government, i.e. the SRI, as SAFE official Mihai Jurca admitted in the evening, decided to award, without a tender, a 196 million euro contract from SAFE, the European defense program. The contract went to the telecommunications company Digi.
The object of the contract is an LLM in Artificial Intelligence, applied to cyber security. Kind of like what Anthropic or Open AI do. Maybe they would have come to this money at the non-existent auction. If it had passed the evaluation filter of the SRI.
The condition to win is to participate without being in the field
But they could not pass because they do not meet the condition satisfied by Digi: not to be specialized.
Artificial Intelligence is an area where Digi has no reputation, no proven technological capability, and no other successful contracts in its professional pedigree, at least not one that it is aware of.
We expressed ourselves complicatedly. Nothing is understood. We apologize. Too much politeness spoils. When it comes to 196 million euros, we can also use Romanian language: Digi has nothing to do with what he received in the envelope.
A country does not defend itself with piles of money, but with systems that work
Asked how a communications firm was reached in an Artificial Intelligence acquisition on cyber security, Mihai Jurca's answer for HotNews was anthological: “It is important that the money stays in Romania.”
And we, like the suckers, thought that the criterion of the SAFE program was different: that the invested funds create military and civil systems that work.
Especially when it comes to the defense of the country, piles of money will not defend us who knows what. Maybe only if we set fire to them and raise smoke alarms from hill to hill like our ancestors.
In Oradea, was this how public procurement was done?
Mihai Jurca is, professionally speaking, one of the closest people to Ilie Bolojan. He is 41 years old and grew up in the Oradea mayor's team, where he was city manager. When Bolojan became prime minister, Jurca was appointed chief of staff and responsible for SAFE.
Jurca was educated as a politician and administrator in Germany, where he saw the difference between politics and combinations that go by the name of “national interest”.
This being the moment, two questions can be asked:
- When Ilie Bolojan's management team ran Oradea and, later, Bihor county, the criteria for public procurement was the same: to favor companies in the area? In reality, they didn't. Based on the information available so far, public procurement was correct. Otherwise, Oradea would not look like this and would not work.
- If there is a condition to keep the SAFE money in the country, why don't we make the drones, helicopters, planes and software here? Why did we sign with companies from Germany, USA and France? Because we don't have the technology. Few countries have it, and we are at the bottom of the ranking.
Listening to Jurca, you realize that SRI can do a lot, but it cannot protect you from being laughed at at certain times. We don't even know if they don't want you to be funny. Secret services have this quality of impresarios of depreciation: they capture smart people and make them look like scumbags, so that they can then depend on them. The real drama is the ridicule of the decent.
“It's probable the first moment in which I am fundamentally ashamed of being Romanian”
After news of the €196 million contract between SRI and Digi broke on Wednesday, an entrepreneur sent us a message.
“It's probably the first moment when I'm fundamentally ashamed of being Romanian. That's without Romania, like that, as an ethereal being, having any fault. But I also understand a little how this stain will remain forever on the country's face.” The man moves: he does not understand a little, he understands very well how such a contract resonates abroad, because he has a lot of experience “outside”. He is very competent and sought after.
According to him, the 196 million euro deal “seems to have compressed in a single case all the pathologies that can destroy the credibility of an AI industrial policy”.
We don't give his name.
“A company is not born on the international market. It is born and becomes good on the national market”
We also remembered something else. A few months ago I had a long discussion about the difficulties of our economy with an important Romanian businessman. Other than the one with the above message.
He spends more time abroad, where he has real business, in IT. We intentionally use the generic term “IT” so as not to expose it. And to be in tune with the SAFE contracts, which use vague definitions.
The man is very successful, he has built brands, teams, he is mega known all over the world. Please don't make assumptions that you won't guess.
Can the Artificial Intelligence made by SRI with Digi find out who I talked to. We will see what they are capable of.
We return to the discussion with the businessman. I asked him why the Poles have a lot of successful companies in Eastern Europe and we have so few. Why do the Czechs buy from us and we don't buy from them. He smiled. “A firm is not born in the international market. Neither IMB nor Apple were born global. There is no international market until after a level of development. A firm is born and becomes good in the domestic market. Then it goes out,” he told me.
The most patriotic speech
I was listening like a fool. It was something so simple, I had never thought of it. I thought he was going to refer to the companies being helped by the state to be successful outside. And the businessman was talking about the real help of the state: not to distort the market.
“A distorted national market, a corrupt market, a rigged market has no way of producing real competition and therefore competitive firms. If you learn poorly here, you don't perform outside.” I was silent. “When the Government complains that we don't have successful Romanian companies abroad, let's see what unfair competition it creates here in Romania,” he said. Then he left.
“What Romanian companies do outside starts with what the Government does here”. There are people for whom “here” means Romania, regardless of where they live and work.
It was the most patriotic speech I have heard in many years. Obviously, if we exclude the recent and memorable intervention of the coordinator of the SAFE program Mihai Jurca, the one who explained to us that “It is important that the money stays in Romania”.
