Wednesday morning, Mr. Horia Constantinescu, the president of the National Authority for Consumer Protection, therefore the head of a very important institution in the relationship between the state and the citizen, turned television screens yellow with a warning posted on Facebook about the yellow chicken bomb.
„A serious attack on everyone’s safety,” nothing more, nothing less.
In response, reactions from poultry specialists, farmers, and the National Sanitary Veterinary Authority began to pour in, asserting that the yellower chickens obtain their color due to being fed with carotenoid-rich products, grains, or feed containing harmless colored components.
One of the interviewed engineers stated that if someone were to explain to him how a chicken could be dyed, he would resign and leave the profession permanently.
Mr. Constantinescu began to backtrack: it's not really about something toxic, but rather deceitful practices towards housewives. He announces his resignation, only to withdraw it a few hours later because he has ongoing projects.
The bizarre Minister of Agriculture can only issue personal opinions, poultry breeders are experiencing losses, and citizens, rightly so, no longer know what and who to believe.
Mr. Constantinescu is no stranger to controversy. For example, last July, he announced the phenomenal victory that the ANCP fined several banks for their rate calculation methods, which he claimed to have prohibited. A decision described by the head of the Financial Stability Department at the National Bank of Romania, Eugen Rădulescu, as "a monument of ignorance." All banks have obtained a court suspension of the decision, and they will likely win on the merits.
In December, on B1 TV, Mr. Constantinescu praised the fruit fly, which we should befriend.
Of course, for instance, Ferma Dacilor went unnoticed by Mr. Constantinescu's high vigilance, as he praised the guesthouse fervently.
Now, Mr. Constantinescu is running for mayor and is advertising himself for free, as he knows best, following a well-established model by another current candidate from Bucharest who started out in markets in the name of citizen protection - Cristian Popescu Piedone.
If he had found a real and systemic problem with the chickens, not just some isolated irregularities, if he had evidence of "a serious attack on everyone's safety," Mr. Constantinescu certainly had not only the right but the obligation to warn.
However, Mr. Constantinescu failed to present any concrete evidence and, scrutinized by industry specialists, he began to backtrack and qualify his statements. Either he fails to prove a real serious situation, or he is playing with people's nerves and the businesses of farmers to gain attention.
But the main culprit for the hysteria created is not Mr. Constantinescu. He is merely a profiteer. The blame lies with those who promote and maintain such clownish adventurers in important and highly visible positions, always ready to trigger a scandal for their own image's sake.
Mr. Constantinescu is playing a game of resignation, because he was not immediately dismissed. Why? Because he is the PSD candidate for Mayor of Constanța. So, he performs all these antics with the blessing of the ruling authorities.
The ones to blame are those who have discredited state institutions to irrelevance. Normally, regardless of what one oddball or another says, if the state has strong and credible institutions, it swiftly dismantles, with arguments and evidence, any nonsense.
Yet, surprisingly, this scandal is triggered right from the top of a state control institution, the ANCP, publicly clashing with another state control institution, the National Sanitary Veterinary Authority. Whom to believe?
In general, state institutions are completely discredited. This is one of the reasons why conspiracy theories are rampant in Romania.
The citizen, accustomed to being lied to, accustomed to incompetence and corruption, accustomed to the state working against him, not for him, is tempted to believe the opposite of the official version.
While a critical spirit must always be active, and a dose of suspicion is healthy, chronic deep-seated distrust is a state that weakens society, which becomes tragic in critical moments.