Romania’s foreign intelligence service will ask Ukraine and Moldova to declassify documents on the entry ban of presidential election candidate and leader of the far-right AUR party George Simion to these countries to find out whether they have evidence that Simion could have met with GRU officers.
Digi24 writes that Romania’s leftist Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu and George Simion are leading the poll ahead of this month’s presidential elections and will therefore meet in the second round.
Cheloku strongly supports Ukraine and its membership in the EU and NATO. Simion opposes aid to Ukraine, especially military aid.
Against the background of the anti-Ukrainian position of the governments of Slovakia and Hungary, as well as anti-Ukrainian protests on the Polish border, Romania remained the last EU neighbor to fully support Ukraine. The country condemned the invasion, is helping with weapons and is building a transport corridor between Ukraine and the EU, bypassing Poland and Hungary. But stable support may soon disappear: the far-right AUR party is rapidly gaining popularity in Romania, and its leader George Simion is second only to the current President of Romania in ratings.
For his ultra-right views, Simion was banned from entering Moldova; he regularly holds street actions where he demands that Moldova be annexed to Romania. Simion is also not allowed to travel abroad in Ukraine – he was declared persona non grata back in 2011, when he met with an FSB agent in Chernivtsi.
Simion reacts aggressively to reproaches about working for Russia. He says that as the author of a thesis on the crimes of communism, he feels mainly hatred towards Russia. However, the politician does not comment on the topic of the meeting with the security service.
The Romanian investigative project RISE found that AUR is very similar to Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz party. Like the Hungarian populists, Romanian nationalists are trying to exploit the horrors and difficulties in the life of the people. This is ironic, considering that in the public sphere AUR and Fidesz are at odds. Fidesz advocates expanding the rights of the Hungarian minority in Romania; local nationalists naturally oppose this. But otherwise the two parties have no differences. And if in 2020 the enemy for them was the coronavirus, now it is the Ukrainians. Like Orbán’s party, AUR also believes that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is “not our war.”
We must do everything not to enter into this conflict,” Claudiu Tarziu argued in February 2023.
He meant that Romania should not supply weapons to Ukraine and even allow the transit of Western weapons through its territory.
Romania should no longer help Ukraine if the Romanians in Chernivtsi continue to be bullied!
Like the Hungarians, he appeals to the Ukrainian education reform of 2017, which limited education in schools in languages other than Ukrainian.
Simion in October 2023, shortly after the start of the war between Israel and Hamas, wrote on Facebook that Romania, at its own expense, removed three thousand Ukrainian citizens from the Gaza Strip – of course, instead of helping the Romanians. The Romanian Foreign Ministry did help the Ukrainians leave, but there were about 300 of them, and they paid for the plane tickets themselves.
Another topic on which Simion speculates is the blockade of Ukrainian grain. In the summer of 2023, Romanian farmers also protested against the import of Ukrainian grain. Romania, like Poland, Hungary and Slovakia, has banned imports. But quite quickly the authorities found a compromise with Ukraine. Already in the fall, the parties agreed – Romania allows the import of wheat, corn, sunflower and soybeans from Ukraine, but only on the basis of a license issued by the Romanian Ministry of Agriculture.
Simion has now subordinated his entire life to politics. On his personal website there is an option to chat with him on Facebook Messenger. He actively says that he lives with his wife in a modest studio apartment in Bucharest, posts on social networks a photo of his pregnant wife with words about the appearance of a new Romanian patriot. And he even made his own wedding a PR campaign, inviting all Romanians to it – to register for the wedding, you had to fill out an application on the website. In the end, the ceremony became one of the country’s most visible public events of 2022.
AUR criticizes the healthcare sector, a long-standing problem in Romania: the public clinic system is outdated and corrupt. The party has significantly refused government payments to support its activities and transfers these funds for treatment to those who need it. Simion himself donates most of his parliamentary salary to such projects.
Populist rhetoric and activity on social networks have led to the popularity of AUR and Simion personally growing steadily. Now sociologists estimate the party’s rating at 20%, and Simion’s presidential rating at 18%. That is, the party is the second most popular in Romania, and George Simion is the third politician in the country.
However, the party’s electorate still remains in villages and small towns. in the central square of Bucharest to hold an action to support them. Almost no one came there, and the farmers moved their rally to the outskirts of the city so that they would definitely not be associated with radicals.
Source: Racurs
I am David Wyatt, a professional writer and journalist for Buna Times. I specialize in the world section of news coverage, where I bring to light stories and issues that affect us globally. As a graduate of Journalism, I have always had the passion to spread knowledge through writing.