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BRUSSELS — Romania’s ultranationalist wannabe President George Simion has two role models he hopes offer a winning formula: Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and U.S. President-elect Donald Trump.
“We are sort of a Trumpist party,” the 38-year-old leader of the Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR) party said, but “it is not by chance that I am happy for my party being in the same political family as Meloni.”
Italy’s hard-right prime minister restored “hope for Italians … in the European project,” Simion told POLITICO in an interview. “What we have seen is … a Melonization” of Europe, he said.
And now, he added, “believe me, there will be a Simionization as well.”
Romanians head to the polls Sunday for the first round of the country’s presidential elections pitting 13 candidates against each other. It comes at a critical time for the southeastern EU nation as it faces a yawning deficit and Russia’s ongoing war in Ukraine raging at its border.
At stake is Romania’s positioning in the EU, with a win for Simion tilting the balance of power in the bloc further to the right and cementing a broader trend of democracies pivoting sharply toward hard-right politics. Despite its checkered history of corruption, Bucharest has long been viewed as a reliable NATO partner and EU bastion in the region.
Simion, who cut his political teeth agitating for unification between Romania and Moldova and is currently polling second behind the country’s center-left Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu, has vowed to remain loyal to NATO and work to reform the EU from the inside if elected. That’s a similar tactic adopted by Meloni after her election victory last year.
But other candidates, including Elena Lasconi, a reformist candidate polling neck-and-neck with Simion, have branded him an “extremist.” AUR rose to prominence during the Covid-19 pandemic on an anti-vaccine platform, while the party also drew criticism in 2022 after calling mandatory Holocaust education in Romanian schools a “minor topic.”
Party leadership is undeterred, however, as global political winds gust to the right.
“Even if we are conservative, which is not to the liking of the establishment in Brussels, even if we believe in many of the values President Trump believes in,” Simion said, “we also believe that we need a strong, united Europe.”
The politician insisted he would “work together” with the EU’s mainstream parties if elected, with Romania’s full accession to the visa-free Schengen zone, pushing for a directly elected EU executive and boosting industrial production in the bloc at the top of his list of priorities.
But unlike Meloni, Simion has openly vowed he would push back against Brussels even if that means breaking EU rules in a move more reminiscent of the populist leaders of Hungary and Slovakia, Viktor Orbán and Robert Fico.
“I would be a liar to say we would respect EU law,” he said. “If tomorrow [there is] a new law that we didn’t vote for … or laws that are not good for Romania,” he said, “I will try to use all my powers to stop what is doing harm for my people.”
Meanwhile, Simion has pledged to suspend military aid to Ukraine, whose government has banned the hard-right leader from visiting the country over his promotion of “unionist ideology,” like neighboring Moldova.
He has also faced accusations of meeting with Russian spies, charges he has repeatedly denied. Speaking to foreign journalists on Wednesday, he branded Russian President Vladimir Putin a “war criminal.”
Still, the AUR party chief said he wants a cease-fire in Ukraine “as soon as possible” and called for a peace agreement brokered by Trump — even if that means Kyiv giving up land currently controlled by Russia.
“I cannot say … to Ukrainians give up your national territory,” he said, “but it’s hard to believe that they won’t be obliged to.”
