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Florin DĂNESCU - The Banking Sector as Critical Infrastructure in the Logic of Hybrid Conflict: Post-2014 Legislative Convergence in Central and Eastern Europe and the Case of Romania

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Articles on Issue Theme

Florin DĂNESCU

Academia de Studii Economice din Bucureşti

This study investigates whether legislative interventions affecting the banking sector in several European economies after 2014 display structural patterns compatible with indirect forms of hybrid pressure on financial intermediation. The analysis is framed by two major reference points: the global financial crisis of 2008, which highlighted the systemic role of banking systems in macroeconomic stability, and the increasing use of financial instruments as tools of geopolitical coercion following the annexation of Crimea. The research adopts an interdisciplinary perspective combining security studies and political economy. A multidimensional analytical framework is applied to evaluate legislative dynamics affecting banking activity, focusing on indicators such as legislative density, temporal convergence, regulatory complexity, the scope of interventions affecting credit architecture, discursive convergence in anti-bank narratives, and regional clustering. These indicators are integrated into a weighted analytical model designed to assess the interaction between the legislative impact on financial intermediation and cross-country convergence patterns. The results suggest that the simultaneity, structural similarity, and regional concentration of legislative initiatives affecting banking activity reduce the likelihood of purely independent domestic developments and support the interpretation of the banking sector as a component of critical economic infrastructure potentially exposed to indirect systemic pressures. Romania is examined as a relevant case study within this regional dynamic.

ŒCONOMICA no. 1-2/2026

Keywords: banking sector, critical economic infrastructure, indirect hybrid pressures, legislative convergence, financial intermediation, systemic vulnerability, Central and Eastern Europe

JEL: F51, F52, G21, G28, H56, P16

The Banking Sector as Critical Infrastructure in the Logic of Hybrid Conflict: Post-2014 Legislative Convergence in Central and Eastern Europe and the Case of Romania

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