Here in this country, we are between preserving what worked in socialist times and adopting European things, but we Romanians are a bit hesitant to adopt an identity when our own is still developing.
A few nice examples.
It’s normal for people (from abroad) to pay 200 euros a month to grow their own vegetables, not in a greenhouse or a solarium, but in a greenhouse/tent.
Financially speaking, it’s quite difficult for Romanians to do the same when at Lidl you can find the same products at an affordable price.
You can still find people here who spend 300 or 400 euros on water just to maintain a solarium. They do it because that’s how they were raised, and that’s what they know as life.
From what I’ve seen in the countryside, these people live in lime-washed houses with a whole lifestyle ensemble from when they still worked with horses and carts.
There’s still a trend of people who do it because it’s cool, people raised after '89 who tie up some plastic foils and plant some seedlings, people who have money and time to burn.
When laws are applied to products in Europe, they discriminate between what a brand wants to appear as ecological and what is actually ecological.
Terms like eco-friendly, or 0 carbon offset.
Things that haven’t quite caught on with the Romanian ear yet.
Our traditions, like alkaline water with a pH of 8 and above, are good and are also catching on in Europe.
But that’s all I have to say, just hoping another Romanian will stop by one day’