2019-08-24 The Economist - Continental Europe edition

The EconomistAugust 24th 2019 Europe 21

C

urtthebison is not surehewantsto

return to the wild. After 20 hours in a

lorry from Germany to Romania, he takes

a few hesitant steps down the ramp,

chews at some leaves, then heads back

inside. Two hours later he is still there,

delaying the bolder females, stuck deep-

er inside the lorry. Finally the rangers

shoot him with a tranquilliser dart. Eight

men,twoperhoof,carryhimintoan

enclosure,wherehequicklyrecovers.

Theotherbeaststrotdutifullyafterhim

acrossa smallbridge.Theywilljointwo

herdsalreadyabout50-strong.Tran-

sylvaniajustgota bitwilder.

Europeanbisonwerehuntedtothe

brinkofextinctionintheearly20th

century.Fewerthan 60 individualsre-

mained,allincaptivity.IntheUnited

States,theAmericanbison’spopulation

fellbelow600.Yetbothspecieshave

sincebeennursedbacktohealth.Herds

havealreadybeenre-establishedin

PolandandBelarus.

EasternEurope’secologicallydiverse

wildflowermeadowsandold-growth

forestsprovidenear-perfectconditions

forbisonandotherscarcespecies.Wild

bees,dragonfliesandglow-worms(and

thebirdswhichfeedonthem),threat-

enedbyintensiveagricultureinwestern

Europe,stillthrivehere.Inthecommu-

nistera,wildernessesbenefitedfroma

reluctancetofarmagriculturallymargin-

alland.Morerecently,ruralareashave

seenmassemigrationsinceRomania

joinedtheEuropeanUnion.Thepop-

ulationofCaras-Severincounty,where

Curtandhisherdwillroam,fellfrom

380,000in 1990 to280,000today.

“Onthefaceofit,we’rejustreleasing

somebiganimalsintotheforest,”says

RobStonemanofRewildingEurope,a

groupoverseeing the project with the

Worldwide Fund for Nature, a charity.

“But this is a keystone species. They open

the forest up.” Bison herds will prevent

shrubs from spreading across pastures.

Red deer will flourish in their wake. Deer

and bison will be preyed on by grey

wolves and brown bears.

Some locals have doubts about bring-

ingbackthegiantruminants.Butthey

seemtobecomingaround.Simona

Boieriu,whoownsa smallfarm onthe

slopesoftheTarcumountains,nowsells

hertomatoestobed-and-breakfaststhat

catertoeco-tourists.Thebison,shesays,

are“attractingpeoplefromothercul-

turestovisitus,peopleinterestedin

natureconservation”.Romanians,she

adds,arelessso.Fromfartherupthe

valleycomesthethunderofa summer

storm.Orperhapsit isthehoovesofthe

mightybuttentativeCurt.

Buttingback

Romania goes wild

TRANSYLVANIA

An ancient beast returns

Bison rising

comparison to those elsewhere in the

oecd,they find work for very few of the un-

employed. Young Spaniards are more like-

ly than peers elsewhere to drop out of

school. And across the south, notes Stefano

Scarpetta of the oecd, employers offer less

vocational training and fewer apprentice-

ships than in Germany or the Netherlands.

High unemployment also reflects a

long-standing feature of southern labour

markets: a relatively large share of workers

cycle in and out of temporary jobs. Cushy

contracts for permanent workers, with

high severance pay and lengthy appeals

procedures, make it costly for bosses to

sack them. Instead they hire lots of tempo-

rary staff, and respond to downturns by

cutting their wages or not renewing their

contracts. Collective-bargaining agree-

ments for permanent staff can be inflexi-

ble—in Portugal, for example, they cannot

include wage cuts, making it hard to cope

with downturns.

Many countries have enacted reforms

since unemployment soared during the

crisis, in some cases as a condition of bail-

out funds. These included cutting sever-

ance pay for permanent staff in order to

make temporary contracts less attractive to

bosses, and allowing firms in dire straits to

depart from wage bargains. Wages were

sometimes cut or frozen.

Those reforms have had mixed results.

In Spain and Portugal pay cuts and freezes,

though unpopular, helped restore compet-

itiveness. But the share of temporary work-

ers—at around a fifth of jobs—has barely

budged. That is not because these people

are satisfied: fully 80% would like to find a

permanent job, compared with around a

third in Britain and 14% in Germany. Pedro

Martins, a former employment minister in

Portugal who is now at Queen Mary Univer-

sity of London, wonders whether bosses

are still too uncertain about the economy

to take a punt on a permanent hire.

Another risk is that reforms may be

rolled back. France is an exception: since

2018 it has taken steps to encourage perma-

nent hiring and vocational training. But

farther south a backlash against wage aus-

terity is encouraging governments to adopt

risky measures.

Minimum wages have been raised—

sensible enough after years in the deep

freeze. But some of the rises appear exces-

sive. Spain’s has risen by 22% this year,

after a 12% increase in 2017-18, despite dou-

ble-digit unemployment. The Bank of

Spain warns the uplift could cause 125,000

job losses, though others dispute that.

Other reforms seem half-baked. In 2018

Italy’s government raised severance pay for

permanent workers and lowered time lim-

its on temporary contracts, despite a warn-

ing from the national social-security ad-

ministration that it would lead employers

to shed temp workers. Thirty-year-old Giu-

lia lost her job when the law came into

force. “The situation was absurd,” she says:

although employers were happy with her

work, they were forbidden to renew her

temporary contract, and decided to hire

and retrain someone else instead. Frustrat-

ed by her experience in Italy, she has taken

up a job offer in Marseilles.

As the global economy slows, the spec-

tre of job losses returns. Another full-

blown crisis is probably not in the cards.

But, frets Mr Martins, a rollback of reforms

could limit employers’ ability to spread the

pain of job and wage cuts more evenly. 7

Not back to normal yet

Source: Eurostat

Unemployment rate, %

2007 09 11 13 15 17 19

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

Italy

Spain Portugal

Greece

Germany

2