TIMISOARA 2.0 (ESI - European Stability Initiative, 2014)
Dan Diaconu, deputy mayor of Timisoara, has an unusual problem. "Unemployment in our city stands at one per cent," the 36-year-old, elected in 2012, explains. "This is a problem for attracting new investors. Some are scared away by this fact." In conditions of near full employment, labour is hard to find. Yet this is a problem that most European cities would long to have. Diaconu concedes, with no sign of enthusiasm, that in his city of 320,000 people, "the economic indicators show that indeed there is no big crisis in Timisoara today." || (This essay is part of the "Return to Europe Revisited" project supported by ERSTE Foundation. Following the award-winning twelve-part documentary series "Return to Europe" (2008/12), we revisit all countries covered by the series.)