The Romanian Government Are Occupying the National Library

The Romanian National Library

Two years ago, Romania's Ministry of Culture moved into four storeys of office space in the newly renovated Romanian National Library. It looked like a ruse to avoid paying rent for a couple of months, and everyone thought it would only be temporary, given the fact the library was built using money from a loan by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, which was supposed to be spent on cultural development, not helping government ministries move into fancy new offices.

But everyone was wrong; the ministry – through an official governmental edict – are now planning to take over all five storeys of the atrium chamber (which were set to be used as the librarian's offices), as well as the basement, the central hallway and the mezzanine, which were supposed to be open to the public.

In the past, these spaces were used by the library for cultural events, which occasionally made the place a bit of money. Now, the Ministry of Culture wants to rent the spaces out for anything from weddings to kebab shops, which sounds less like promoting Romanian culture and more like cashing in for commercial gain.

"As things stand, the ministry is stopping the building fulfil its original purpose, which implicitly means that they are doing the same to the European funds used to build it," said a press release from the Librarian Association of the National Library.

What they're trying to say is that what the ministry are doing with the European funds isn't only immoral, but illegal.

I called Bogdan Trâmbaciu, an official from the Ministry of Culture who dealt with implementing the bank loan, and he told me, "This loan has nothing to do with the library's functionality. The ministry chose to use the common areas because the library wasn't using them properly. The money would be returned to the building, the maintenance of which is very expensive. The library can still make use of these spaces."

Unsurprisingly, Doina Stănescu – the president of the reading room department – begs to differ: "All institutions under the Ministry of Culture manage themselves," she said. "So why can't the National Library do the same, especially since it did so in the past?"

One answer is that the government seems to view the National Library as a company that has to turn a profit, even though it's a public building that's already paid for by the taxpayer. The Ministry of Culture, almost inconceivably, also appear to have forgotten that libraries are supposed to represent a country's cultural identity, not its government's appetite for cash. And by occupying or renting out its lecture halls, conference rooms, audition halls, bookstores, a book museum, a coffee shop and book depositories, the government is only leaving the library with a tiny space to fulfil its social and educational purpose.

"The library is reduced to conditions that would only be acceptable in the 19th century – that of a book depository and a lecture hall," said the librarians in a press release.

The Ministry of Culture have padlocked doors in the library, preventing the transfer of books between different departments.

I recently spent a couple of rainy days perusing the eight floors of the Amsterdam Public Library, reading books that I could only dream of finding in Bucharest. That's partly because you can now only go as far as the first floor in the Romanian National Library, so I have no idea of what's available on the storeys above it. Plus, the library is closed during the weekend and every weekday from 6PM onwards, so – in between working, eating and sleeping – it's not like there's a lot of free time to visit.

When you can make it there, it's often pretty hard to find whatever it is you're looking for, because there aren't enough staff to unpack the thousands of books waiting to be sorted. Of course, even if there were, there wouldn't be any shelves to put them on.

According to the librarians, there should be almost 1,000 employees; instead, there are just a little over 200. There are also only five cleaners employed to take care of the areas accessed by the public, and a member of building staff who didn't give his name told me that "the employee toilets are washed by the librarians themselves".

According to the library's marketing department, last year they held over 50 events throughout January and February, using any profits to supplement taxpayer money and funds from the European loan. This year, they have only been able to host a fraction of that number, as the library has to get permission from the ministry every time it wants to hold an event on the premises.

The library itself is blamed for all of its shortcomings, even though the ministry is largely responsible because it constantly fails to give the institution enough money to evolve. In over 30,000 square metres of publicly accessible space, for example, there are only 58 computers. On the other hand, the Ministry of Culture is making £180,000 on a Samsung billboard hanging on the side of the library building, and using the money to buy television sets for their offices.

This isn't the first time the National Library has been annexed by the government. In 2002, the former prime minister, Adrian Năstase – now imprisoned for corruption – almost turned it into the new governmental headquarters. Eight years later, a MP called Silviu Prigoană proposed that Parliament be moved there.

Both times, employees kicked up a fuss in the media, which managed to keep them afloat. But the ministry is now threatening to sue the library if they don't agree to give up the building, and sadly it often takes a lot more than a letter campaign and a couple of angry op-eds to stop a government lawsuit.