Good fucking grief.

However awful you thought the makeup of Romania’s new PSD-ALDE government might be, you will no doubt be disappointed to discover that reality has once again by far outdone the imagination. Sworn in yesterday evening after being approved by a compliant parliament (only the PNL and the USR voted against) Romania is now ruled by a cabal of sycophants, crooks and utter fools. Few of the country’s 27 new ministers have anything approaching the right qualifications for their portfolios; indeed many would – in a normal country – actually be disqualified from holding public office. Following in the direct footsteps of the most transparent, competent and honest government in Romanian history (alas given just over 12 months in office) the new administration has been installed to reverse almost every step towards honesty, decency and justice painstakingly taken over the past 26 years. It is a government of occupation.

These are dark days for Romania, and the scale of the disaster that awaits the country is unprecedented. The only possible comparison (with the Adrian Nastase government of 2000-2004) is not altogether relevant: Romania was still then outside the EU, and had to behave in order to gain membership. Nastase of course strayed far from the straight and narrow (he was eventually imprisoned for corruption offences committed while in office) but did at least do the minimum required under EU entry regulations. The PNA (the precursor of today’s DNA, Romania’s anti-corruption agency) was set up during Nastase’s mandate, though back then it lacked power and leadership. How ironic that the DNA will now, along with President Klaus Iohannis and perhaps the USR (with or without departing PM Dacian Ciolos) serve as Romania’s real opposition.

As such, the DNA will be the first target of the new regime. Its budget (currently €22 million) will be drastically cut, and the number of ways in which it can collect and use evidence reduced. Agencies which are part of the Ministry of the Interior (notably the police) will be ordered to halt all collaboration. Many of the current criminal cases against leading politicians and public figures will be eviscerated, then declared invalid and dropped. There is talk of an amnesty and pardon bill for those already on trial or convicted.

The new Minister of Justice, Florin Iordache, said yesterday that such an amnesty and pardon bill would be ‘welcome’ and that one of his first tasks as minister will be a reversal of the 2012 Criminal Procedures Act (which greatly increased the DNA’s powers of investigation). Iordache, by the way, is something of a superhuman. In just six years from 2002-2008 he managed to procure a bachelor’s degree, two masters degrees and take three post-masters courses. For his next trick, he got himself a doctorate from the University of Chisinau in the Republic of Moldova while serving as an MP for a constituency in Bucharest.

And it could get even worse.

The so-called Avocatul Poporului (ombudsman) Victor Ciorbea this morning filed papers at Romania’s Constitutional Court appealing against the law which forbids convicted criminals from holding public office. Specifically, Ciorbea wants to set forth in motion a set of circumstances which would allow PSD leader Liviu Dragnea (a convicted criminal) to become prime minister. On paper, Ciorbea’s job is to defend ordinary people from abuse of office by public figures and institutions. He has made a habit of doing the exact opposite.

Until Dragnea can legally become PM, it is Sorin Grindeanu who will be the de jure head of government. He will have little real power however, as he will be expected to do Dragnea’s bidding. At Monday’s press conference at which the majority of ministerial appointments were announced Grindeanu looked a forlorn, forgotten figure playing with a pen while Dragnea took centre stage behind a barrage of microphones. We do not expect much to change.

Of the team Grindeanu leads, it is difficult to find a single minister with a redeeming feature.

The Minister of Work Lia Olguta Vasilescu (erstwhile Mayor of Craiova) faces trial for corruption, while the new Minister of Youth and Sport Marius Dunca is a former boss of the Consumer Protection Council and was the first person to be sacked after the fire at Colectiv which killed 68 people in October 2015. (Following a complaint Dunca went to inspect Colectiv just days before the fire but – for unknown reasons – failed to gain entry). Meantime, at the Ministry of the Economy Alexandru Petrescu will no doubt put to use the expertise he learnt at his old job as head of Posta Romana, the Romanian Post Office, which last year lost 33 million lei.

Sevil Shhaideh – Dragnea’s first nomination as PM before being rejected by Klaus Iohannis what feels like a hundred years ago – has nevertheless bagged herself a prime cabinet post (the Ministry of Regional Development, which has the biggest budget) and has already set out her stall. She wants parliamentary immunity extended to mayors and the heads of county councils as they are, in her words: ‘the first to face the consequences of the law in cases of wrong-doing.’

Remember the fuck up at Otopeni Airport last year, when taxis became rarer than an honest member of a PSD cabinet? Well, the genius behind that little caper, Razvan Cuc (who was subsequently fired from an underling’s role at the Ministry of Transport for incompetence) is back at the same ministry… this time as the boss. How wonderful. Still, at least he was truthful about one thing: asked yesterday how many kilometres of motorway he would promise to build during his term in office, he replied: ‘none’.

Over at the Education Ministry Pavel Nastase condemned millions of Romanians to a below-par education by declaring that ‘not everyone can pass the baccalaureate. Some people are born to fail exams.’ Selection at birth. Excellent. And you thought the eleven-plus was harsh?

As a publisher however, one thing worries us more about the new government than any other: the transformation of the Ministry of Culture into the Orwellian sounding Ministry of Culture and National Identity. Who knows what legislation the new minister of ‘National Identity’ Ioan Vulpescu – a theology graduate – has in store for the independently-minded writer or artist? We genuinely dread to think. Future editions of Bucharest In Your Pocket will no doubt have to reflect ‘traditional Romanian values’. Cue happy peasants wearing ie and opinci on the cover. Will we still be allowed to publish ads for non-Romanian restaurants? Casinos? Massage parlours? Will our essay on Jewish Bucharest be censored to reflect a more post-truth way of looking at the Legionary Movement and its pogroms? As for our take on Romanian food… they’ll throw the key away if anyone at the Ministry of Culture and National Identity ever reads it.

In the wider world of Romanian ‘culture and national identity’ we fully expect anyone who does not toe the new line to be harshly dealt with. Romania’s finest historian, Lucian Boia, will be down a salt mine by the end of the week. When the kids go back to school on Monday they will no doubt be forced to recite the poems of fascist scumbag Radu Gyr before class.

Are we making more of this disaster than we should? No. The scale of what’s about to happen is mind-boggling and cannot be overstated. This is partly because they are going to get away with it. External players who once assisted and offered support to what opposition Romania still has no longer appear to be interested. The United States is about to fall in on itself, while the EU has other priorities: its toothless response to the slow eradication of the rule of law in Poland by a far-right government is evidence of that. There, only a number of huge street protests have prevented the country from catastrophe. We do not see the same happening in Romania, for the simple reason that we can’t see anybody sticking around to protest.

Romania was frontier territory in the early 1990s. With the exception of Russia and parts of the former Yugoslavia it was the wildest part of the Wild East, that void left in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union and its empire. The new government wants to restore the Wild East.

Back then, rules and laws were made to be broken, existing on paper for all but seldom in reality for the lucky few who found themselves at the top of tree. Those with the right connections made fortunes, while those who had to do things by the book were blocked by bureaucracy at every turn. Most gave up and left.

Back then, foreigners were viewed with a level of suspicion bordering on paranoia: good to be fleeced for every penny they had but not trusted enough to go about their business unmolested. Anyone who tried to set up and run a small business in the early 1990s will know just how horrific things were. Most gave up and left.

Back then, young people fresh out of university who lacked friends or family in the right places found few opportunities to start a proper career. Most gave up and left.

Back then, peasants in the countryside desperate to get themselves off the land and into productive work discovered very quickly that most factories had been sold for little or nothing to people in the right places and then immediately closed, assets stripped. There were no jobs. Most gave up looking and left.

Since 1990 Romania has seen an exodus of Biblical proportions: as many as three million people have moved abroad. The policies of the new Romanian government will force hundreds of thousands more to depart over the next four years: the youngest, the brightest and the best. It has never been easier for them to do so. A new wave of Romanian emigration is about to begin. That will be the legacy of the country’s new government.