Nationalists, Eurosceptics, anti-NATO, MAGA caps, Trump (but not Putin) supporters, and Călin Georgescu. What is on the minds of the voters supporting Romania’s far-right and sovereignists?
A bright billboard with the face of far-right politician Călin Georgescu greets customers at Buchetino, a 24-hour flower shop in Bucharest. “Love is a business of the night,” jokes Stefan Surubariu, the owner. Inside are boxes of red roses and teddy bears, a t-shirt with an image of the moment a bullet hit Trump’s ear during a rally, football scarves and a coffee machine with an image of Trump with his index finger pointing forward.
“Do you want some Trump coffee or are you more of an Ursula fan?” asks the owner, referring to Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission.
Wearing a red cap with the words “Make America Great Again” (MAGA) on his head, the entrepreneur explains that when Georgescu won the first round of the presidential election – before it was cancelled last December – he used his TikTok account to invite followers to display his face in shops. “When you visit Turkey, you see the face of Atatürk, the reformer of modern Turkey, everywhere”. This is how Surubariu describes Georgescu, the country’s reformer, “the Atatürk of Romania”, because in the 35 years since the Romanian revolution, “no one has raised the flag”.
Surubariu also claims that Georgescu “said things that we Romanians had never heard from a politician. He talks about faith, he talks about dignity, he talks about sovereignty, he talks about patriotism. The culture of patriotism has been lost, along with the custom of offering flowers”.
Surubariu is one of thousands of Romanians who call themselves “sovereignists”, as opposed to “globalists”, i.e. supporters of EU policies. They are nationalists, Eurosceptics and anti-NATO.
As analyst Radu Magdin from the consultancy firm Smartlink explains, in Romania there are currently three far-right populist parties that call themselves sovereignists: the Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR), S.O.S. and the Party of Young People (POT).
According to Magdin, Donald Trump’s victory in the US “encouraged several politicians from the mainstream to adopt labels like ‘patriot’ or ‘sovereignist’, including the former social-democratic prime minister Victor Ponta”.
Călin Georgescu’s candidature in the 4 May presidential elections was eventually cancelled by Romania’s Central Electoral Office. The pro-Russian independent candidate won a surprise victory in the first round of the November elections, and the second round was cancelled at the last minute. The Romanian Constitutional Court explained that the decision was due to interference in the electoral process and campaign, including cyber attacks and disinformation via social networks.
More than two million Romanians – 22.94% – voted for Georgescu in the first round on 24 November. Prior to this result, polls were predicting that another sovereignist, George Simion of AUR, would advance to the second round.
Earlier, in October, the candidature of the controversial far-right MEP Diana Șoșoacă of S.O.S., famous for her appearance in the European Parliament with a dog muzzle and an image of Christ, was also invalidated. The Constitutional Tribunal had determined that “repeatedly in her speeches, Diana Iovanovici-Şoșoacă urges the alteration of the democratic foundations of the state and violation of the constitutional order”.
As Magdin explains, while Șoșoacă and Georgescu’s rhetoric coincides in many respects, and both have been very critical of the EU and NATO and have expressed pro-Russian sentiments, they have different political styles and personalities: “Georgescu is more measured and strategic, while Șoșoacă is direct and provocative”.
Romania, colony of the West?
Although the label “sovereignist” is not central to Romanian politics, Magdin says that far-right politicians have historically used nationalist and hardline rhetoric, especially in the 1990s and early 2000s. The most striking example is that of Corneliu Vadim Tudor, who made it to the presidential runoff in 2000, and whose party won almost a fifth of the votes in the legislative elections.
The rise of radical right-wing forces in Romania is part of a broader European trend that the country began to follow in the early 2000s. Magdin explains that several factors have contributed to their rise. Firstly, there is disenchantment with the traditional parties, especially after the Social Democratic Party (PSD) and the National Liberal Party (PNL) formed a coalition in 2021.
This was compounded by the population’s discontent with the handling of the Covid pandemic. As a result of widespread anti-vax campaigns, Romania and Bulgaria have the lowest vaccination coverage against the coronavirus in the EU (42.5 and 30.5 percent respectively), according to data from the European Centre for Disease Control and Prevention. These figures contrast with the EU average of 75.6 percent, and peaks of 87.4 percent in Spain and 96 percent in Portugal.
The discontent also stems from social inequalities, “despite strong economic growth in general”, Magdin points out. While there are more than 8,000 Teslas on Romanian roads, some of which cost more than 125,000 euro, one in six Romanians do not have a bathroom at home. Citizens complain about the poor quality of public services, a general frustration with governance and “growing scepticism towards European integration and globalisation, with narratives portraying Romania as an economic colony of the West”.
Added to this cocktail are the strong historical legacy of extreme right-wing movements, particularly in the inter-war period, and social networks. About nine million Romanians, almost half the population, use TikTok.
The investigative media outlet Snoop, in association with Hotnews, interviewed several Georgescu supporters to find out the motivations behind their vote in the last elections. After the interviews, 12 key words were identified that were used with particular frequency: six were used with positive connotations – spirituality, health, home, love, calm, diplomat – and another six were used with negative connotations – Ukraine, USR (Save Romania Union), LGBT/gay/homosexual, PSD, Zionist/Jew and vaccine/covid.
“I have no problem with other sexual orientations, but I don’t agree with their aggressive promotion,” Surubariu argues. “We have lost a lot of our essence, we no longer have the spiritual purity we once had, our traditions are disappearing,” he continues. He adds that “all this is happening because of EU policy, because of Mrs Ursula, who forgets that we are peoples with different cultures, with different people, different beliefs, different histories. We need change and relief: fiscal relief, social relief, relief in all senses”.
Sovereignists versus Trumpists
“Make Romania Great Again” was the slogan on one protester’s placard during the large march called by AUR in the centre of Bucharest on 1 March. For Magdin, many of these forces side with Donald Trump and are inspired by his electoral success. There is no shortage of points of contact.
For example, Romanian sovereignists often criticise George Soros, progressive culture, the so-called “sexo-Marxists”, LGBT rights, while favouring patriotism and an economy that prioritises national capital.
However, Magdin continues, there are important differences, such as the fact that, “while Trump advocates for autarky (”America first”), Romania is heavily dependent on EU funds and foreign investment, which makes a strong nationalist economic policy less viable”.
Since joining the EU, Romania has received more than 100 billion euro in EU funds, according to data from Marcel Boloș, the country’s Minister of European Investments and Projects. Most of these funds have been invested in infrastructure and development.
As for pro-Russian attitudes, this position does not have much of a following in Romania, Magdin says. “Distrust of Russia is extremely high: polls show that only 5 percent of Romanians are pro-Russian.” As for Surubariu, he says that “I am not pro-Putin, I am pro-Trump. But then again, why accuse someone who does no harm?”
According to Surubariu, “Putin just wanted to recover some territories where Russian citizens have lived or currently live”. He says that Donald Trump treats America as if it were his company. “In a company, if employees are well paid and punctual, then automatically there are profits and prosperity.”
Regarding the Euroscepticism of the parties in question, Surubariu takes an ironic tone: “Romania cannot leave Europe because its territory, its territorial extension, has been there since God created the world. The European Union came and found us in Europe. Neither Georgescu, nor Trump, nor Putin, nor anyone else can take Romania and move it 20,000 km, next to Australia or in the middle of the ocean”.
Before saying goodbye, Surubariu asks us to take a photo of him wearing the traditional Romanian wool cap. Some of Georgescu’s supporters attend protests dressed in sheepskins or in the ancient Dacian costume, “like the assault on the US Congress,” the florist points out.
Dacia was an ancient kingdom roughly corresponding to present-day Romania, known for its resistance against the Roman Empire.
The phenomenon of Europeans calling themselves “sovereignists” and holding Eurosceptic views is not exclusive to Romania. Vsquare has revealed that illiberal forces in Poland and Hungary have allegedly sent a series of proposals to the Trump administration’s most influential think tank, the Heritage Foundation, to shape what they believe the future of the European Union should be: these proposals would include dismantling key EU institutions and changing the name of the entire region, from European Union to the European Community of Nations.
Lola García-Ajofrín is a Spanish journalist based in Madrid. She currently works for El Confidencial and the Polish multimedia project Outriders. In the past, she has worked with a wide range of media, including El País, El Mundo, La Información and Telecinco.
Translation: Ciarán Lawless.
This article was first published on Voxeurop.