Vladimir Mitev
Cătălin-Gabriel Done holds a PhD in Political Science from the University of Naples “Federico II” – Department of Political Science
In his academic career, Cătălin-Gabriel holds a BA in International Relations and European Integration and a Master’s degree in Political Science from SNSPA, Bucharest. He has collaborated with several national and international organizations, including the ILO and Europe Elects. He is currently Vice President and Researcher at ESGA Romania, where he is working on security and Nordic cooperation and the EU’s relations with the Eastern Partnership, in particular with the Republic of Moldova and Ukraine.
Lately, it seems more and more visible that Romania is entering a crisis. Maybe the Romanian state, maybe the Romanian elites, maybe Romanian society is going into a crisis. It seems to me that there is a great deal of division, but there is also this discourse in which each of the major world leaders, the major elite groups, whether international or domestic, accuse the other side, the opposing side, of having intervened in the situation in Romania, of having meddled, of having exerted a negative influence.
And it seems to me that there are several interlinked crises. One is this division between the Romanian elites, if we simplify it by Western Europe or the USA and so on, but there is also this thing that Romania too much, or perhaps the Romanian elites too much, think in proxy categories and that either some or others of the international blocs must be masters. And the fact that the elections have been annulled has led to a situation in which practically normalized any talk that outside forces are meddling in Romania and nefariously influencing the country’s political life.
Maybe I did not understand correctly, I don’t know, but in any case, there is more and more discussion about this, that Romania does not take its own decisions, that every decision is a decision of a master who uses the country. I find this very humiliating and difficult to resolve. Basically Romania very suddenly needs to grow out of this role, which seems more and more normalized – that someone is always intervening and negatively influencing things within it. This is how I have described a number of the problems and I wanted to hear how you see the things I have described and perhaps the solutions, if there are any.
Of course, from my point of view, Romania has been the Russian Federation’s testing ground in terms of political, geostrategic and social influence on a NATO and European Union Member State. Unfortunately, we were taken by surprise. The Romanian secret services and political decision-makers have not managed to offer maximum protection in terms of the degree of influence on the electorate’s decisions, as, for example, the Republic of Moldova and SIS – the Information and Security Service of the Republic of Moldova – have done. We all know that they have adopted certain forceful measures, blocking websites or limiting the influence of certain television channels and the written press, which has a negative influence on the electorate. From my point of view, what happened last November and December was clearly a distortion of the electoral process in Romania and beyond. We had an open, open information war.
The Romanian secret services provided this information to the former president, Klaus Iohannis, who also decided to declassify some of the information from the secret services, the Romanian Intelligence Service and the Foreign Intelligence Service. The problem, in fact and in law, lies in the way in which Romania’s Constitutional Court has played its role as guardian of democracy and constitutional order in Romania. I am not bothered by the fact that the members of the Constitutional Court have decided to annul the first round of the Romanian presidential elections, but I am bothered by the way in which this Constitutional Court has acted.
More specifically, I am disturbed by the fact that the Constitutional Court initially decided to validate the first round of the presidential elections on the basis of the decision of the Romanian Central Electoral Bureau, and then, following the complaints lodged by two Romanian institutions, it decided to annul the elections in their entirety. In the case of one of them, the SNSPA, the National School of Political and Administrative Studies. The rector of this university has lodged a complaint with the Constitutional Court requesting that the elections be annulled. I have a problem here because, according to the provisions of national law (specifically, Law No 370/2004 for the election of the President of Romania and Law No 47/1992 on the organization and functioning of the Constitutional Court of Romania establish who can refer a matter to the Constitutional Court), the Constitutional Court of Romania can be referred to the Court by the Central Electoral Bureau, by a candidate in the presidential elections, by political parties or electoral alliances or the Court can refer a matter to itself), in relation to the conduct of elections.
According to the Romanian Constitution, the Constitutional Court guarantees through its activity two things, namely, it guarantees the constitutional and democratic order in the country and it also ensures that the Romanian electoral process is democratic and fair. The Constitutional Court met in a separate session after former President Klaus Iohannis had declassified some of the secret service documents presented to the Supreme Council of National Defense and decided to invalidate the presidential elections. This, of course, after having initially validated them.
It is not unprecedented in Romania for a Constitutional Court to invalidate its own decisions. However, the legitimacy of this decision, which the anti-democratic, anti-constitutional forces in Romania are raising, is the question of whether the Constitutional Court invalidated the presidential election on the basis of a university’s complaint. If it did so on the basis of the complaint lodged by a university, that is to say a public institution in Romania, then we have a big problem. The Constitutional Court, through its president, has not clarified this issue.
Moreover, somehow, the Romanian press did not make a fuss on this issue either, but was content with the fact that the elections were annulled. To come back to my point, I believe that the annulment of the laws was clear proof that the state institutions are watching over the constitutional and democratic order in our country. In fact, the Constitutional Court should have invalidated the elections from the outset because we saw very clearly the shortcomings in the organization of the presidential elections.
We have seen how the electoral competitor, Călin Georgescu, blatantly hijacked the election campaign: he used non-transparent funds to finance his election campaign, he directly incited constitutional disorder, the disregard of constitutional order in Romania and, what is more, the Romanian secret services have proved it, and not only the Romanian secret services, but also the French, British and German secret services have proved it. They have proved that state actors, alien to Romania’s strategic interests, have intervened in the electoral campaign, influencing voter perception. It is not possible for an electoral competitor to declare zero electoral campaign funds, but at the same time to spend millions of euros for his online promotion, for the promotion of videos and election spots with the help of influencers, while at the same time openly saying that he has only benefited from the goodwill of the Romanian people who, according to his statements, are fed up with the parallel state and the current political class.
But in my view, Romania has behaved in an exemplary manner in defending the democratic and constitutional order after the annulment of the presidential election. Canceling a presidential election in a Member State of the European Union is not unprecedented. I would remind you that the Federal Constitutional Court of Austria annulled the election of President Alexander von der Bellen simply because the difference between him and his competitor, the former leader of the Austrian Freedom Party, was only 45 000 votes. The Austrian Constitutional Court considered that the 45,000 votes may represent a counting error and would vitiate the election result.
However, in Romania, the state institutions, the Romanian state’s institutions of force have very clearly demonstrated that the presidential elections were flawed, that Romania was subjected to a hybrid attack by a foreign force and the foreign force is clearly the Russian Federation. We have evidence presented by the Public Prosecutor’s Office and the Foreign Intelligence Service that a series of TikTok accounts with e-mail addresses in the Russian Federation but on Turkish servers were activated so that Călin Georgescu, the competitor, could benefit from extensive visibility on social networks. These TikTok accounts have been used to promote Călin Georgescu, who, in my view, is nothing other than an exponent of the Russian Federation’s desire to destabilize Romania. So Romania is going through an extremely troubled period.
Yes, it is true, we are going through a political crisis because President Iohannis has been forced out of office by a cabal of agitators. This is evidence of the weakness of President Iohannis, of the presidential administration, because I would remind you that President Iohannis resigned under pressure from a small group of protesters in Victory Square and the threat of suspension from office. The threat came from the undemocratic opposition in Romania, but also from the Union Save Romania. So the departure of President Iohannis has thrown the country into chaos. More recently the Romanian Parliament debated and voted on the motion of no confidence against the Ciolacu government. Fortunately, this motion of censure did not pass, but it is yet more proof of how pro-Russian forces are trying to destabilize Romania. Romania, as a NATO and European Union Member State, is obliged to take all legal measures to protect the constitutional order, because any imbalance caused here in Romania destabilizes the entire European Union in fact and in law. Romania is not a vassal to anyone within the European Union. Romania is treated on an equal footing, we are at the same table and have the same decision-making power as Germany, Italy, France, Spain and so on. However, if we were to refer to this kind of framework of vassalage towards someone’s political or strategic desires, then, yes, Romania is currently in a vassal relationship with Washington and the Trump administration’s desire to dictate Romania’s own decisions and to intervene in Romania’s judicial processes. I am referring in particular to the Tate brothers’ trial.
Georgescu did not appear now. He has existed in Romanian politics for a very long time. I remember that Rareș Bogdan did some interviews with him which promoted Georgescu as a future prime minister. Călin Georgescu also had access to other national televisions where he was presented as a great expert and manager.
So can we not think of the current struggle in Romania, the contestation between different forces, as something very Romanian? Not as a fight necessarily between Soros and Putin or I don’t know who, Trump and Biden and so on, but a very Romanian fight, of course, the stakes being high and the emotion being very strong. And could we not be talking about the institutions of the Romanian state becoming hostages in some senses in this battle between the various forces coming from within the Romanian state?
Many in Romanian politics have supported and continue to support Călin Georgescu, but not out of a desire to increase Romania’s visibility on the international stage, but on the contrary. We have known very well since the communist period that Romania’s security services have been infested by those Soviet, later post-Soviet, agents who remained loyal to the Kremlin and who constantly tried to destabilize the country.
After the fall of the communist regime in Romania and the seizure of power in a coup d’état by Ion Iliescu and his cronies, the Romanian secret services and army were purged to eliminate all opponents of the Iliescu regime and replace them with people loyal to the post-communist regime and, implicitly, to Russian forces. After the 2000s, after Ion Iliescu changed his vision and worked together with the PNTCD government to push Romania westwards, things changed a bit, but these structures remained active. Călin Georgescu was, quite rightly as you rightly mentioned, he was the prime minister proposed whenever Romania’s government faltered or fell through a no-confidence motion.
I would draw your attention to the fact that this character, Călin Georgescu, was on the lips of all the leaders of the Social Democratic Party when it came to replacing the prime minister. This happened at the time of the fall of the Boc government and at the time of the fall of the Mihai Răzvan Ungureanu government and at the time of the fall of the Dăncilă government. Because, we must say it very clearly, the Social Democratic Party still has within its ranks a number of communist, ultra-nationalist and pro-Moscow, pro-Russian reminiscences. They are either elements that have remained from after 1989 or elements that joined the Social Democratic Party from the ranks of the Great Romania Party led by Corneliu Vadim Tudor.
The Social Democratic Party is not a social democratic party in the true sense of the word. It is a conservative, even ultra-conservative party, which is trying hard to reach the electorate that is afraid of any social and political change in our country. Moreover, during Liviu Dragnea’s leadership of the Social-Democratic Party, this party was one that campaigned for fierce ultra-nationalism, for Romania’s withdrawal from European politics. Everything was black and gray when it came to the European Union, everything was bad, we had to produce, everything had to be made in Romania and so on.
In order to attract more and more sympathizers, even today in Bucharest there are pro-Călin Georgescu demonstrations organized by the AUR and George Simion and this simply leads to disorder and unrest in society. This polarizes the different social groups. In fact and in law, I can safely say that AUR, SOS and the Young People’s Party, a party which was set up at the behest of Călin Georgescu, do nothing other than represent that social group in Romania which is the loser in the transition from communism to a liberal society, to a capitalist and pluralist society.
I would ask you to pay attention to the statements made by an extremely visible and extremely well-known member of the Golden Party, and here I am referring to George Becali – the owner of the FCSB football team. George Becali came out publicly on Romanian television and declared that he will make every political and economic effort to prevent the election of Călin Georgescu as President of Romania, considering resigning from the AUR Party and from the Romanian Parliament (n.b. because George Becali is an AUR member of the Romanian Parliament) and running for president. The infighting among these pro-Georgescu and pro-Russian forces became extremely strong after George Becali’s statements because George Becali, although he is a nationalist, a religious fanatic, he is the winner of this transition to capitalism. George Becali came out and said, “What do you mean that Călin Georgescu should come and take us out of the European Union when I have gained from the European Union and from Romania’s membership of NATO and the European Union?”. He is, if you like, the exponent of Romanian capitalism which is ready to fight against these ultra-nationalist groups in society, in politics, in the army and in the secret services and to take Romania further into the pro-Western sphere.
Speaking of polarization, we note that the accusations against Georgescu were made just two days after the German parliamentary elections and were supported afterwards by several embassies in Western Europe. Immediately after Georgescu was indicted, as I understand it, the Tate brothers were allowed to leave Romania, and this was due to pressure from the United States. So to what extent can there be a connection between the fact that in Romanian society there is a division between people, some on the side of the pro-European and some on the pro-sovereignist side, and, on the other hand, to what extent does this polarization weaken the Romanian state’s power to have a coherent and vertical approach in international relations? In other words, is the Romanian state not falling into a trap in which it has to be subordinate or proxy and cannot be completely independent and independent in international relations?
The issue of the accusations against Călin Georgescu is an extremely serious one because, in my view, the Romanian authorities have stuttered and have somehow been afraid to act firmly against any attempt to destabilize the constitutional order in Romania. Basically, the prosecutor’s office of the High Court of Cassation and Justice is accusing Călin Georgescu of one of the most serious crimes under the penal code, for which the penalty is 20 years in prison. I am referring here to the attempt to destabilize the democratic and constitutional order in Romania. This crime creates a state of danger for the constitutional order, for the stability of the Romanian state, because if we look at what the prosecutors’ accusations are about, we will see that it is an armed action aimed at changing the constitutional order and preventing the exercise of democratic power in the state.
Then, the Tate brothers have been released from the control imposed by the Romanian magistrates, and here I am referring to the ban on leaving the country, the judicial control. The seizure of their assets have been lifted and this comes as a result of the political pressure that the White House exerted on Bucharest. No matter how much Romania’s foreign minister tries to deny it, it is obvious that in Munich he received firm signals from American officials that the two sex abusers – there is solid and indisputable evidence to this effect – should be left alone.
The problem that I see here is not that America has tried to influence the judicial process in Romania, but the fact that the Romanian authorities, the Romanian magistrates, have given in to the political pressure exerted by the United States. What is even more serious is that after this extremely controversial decision by the judges at the Bucharest Court of First Instance to accept the prosecutor’s proposal to lift any form of control over the Tate brothers, the High Council of the Judiciary has not taken action, has not defended the independence of justice in any way.
The Superior Council of Magistrates is the guarantor of the independence of justice. The associations of practitioners and professionals in the judicial system have taken absolutely no attitude and no position whatsoever with regard to the magistrates’ decision, and civil society has remained silent. The press has confined itself to presenting the magistrates’ decision and showing us how the Tate brothers are leaving Romania. This is extremely serious because it seems that this undemocratic power in Washington has succeeded in just a few months in silencing any form of opposition in a partner state, in a state which is a friend of the United States of America. This is extremely serious because it not only polarizes society, but also demonstrates that in Romania, if you have money and if you are friends with the right people, you can do anything and you can benefit from the protection of the judicial system, even if you organize a criminal group. This is a very clear signal that citizens’ rights and freedoms no longer count in the face of the wishes of an American president, or rather an American president who, as we can see, does not understand what respect for democratic values, the rule of law and constitutional values mean.
And here I agree with the American Vice-President J.D. Vance who says that Romania and the United States of America no longer share common values. Yes, that is true. We no longer have common values to share. Romania is a European state, a democratic state, a state that respects freedom, respects the liberal-constitutional order, whereas the United States of America has abandoned these values and these ideals, sliding towards a form of authoritarianism and political oligarchism.
Discussions about the state of Romanian democracy have intensified lately and I wanted to ask this question too. We can see that the US and the European Union seem to be splitting up lately, so it is not just a question of a choice between a united West and a united East. There are different Wests and different Easts. How does this struggle influence democracy in Romania and how much does it jeopardize it?
Extremely. Because in the last few days Romania has been downgraded from a deficient democracy to a hybrid regime, the penultimate category of the four categories that The Economist uses in its annual global index of democracies. Romania was downgraded after allegations of Russian interference, illegal social media tactics and blatant violations of presidential campaign financing prompted the Constitutional Court to annul the presidential election. In The Economist’s ranking, Romania is ranked 72nd in the world and last in the European Union, paradoxically surpassed by Hungary, but also by Bulgaria and the Republic of Moldova. In Eastern Europe, the only country with a worse score than Romania is Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The geopolitical struggle definitely influences the degree of democracy in Romania, but at the same time I am extremely confident that the state institutions will be able to withstand these attacks from Russia and other state and non-state actors and we will prove that we can organize free and democratic elections and that we can govern freely and democratically. Moreover, the perception that Romania is losing its capacity to govern democratically is a bit exaggerated in my view because Romania has proved that it is a resilient state, a state capable of resisting any pressure from outside, with small exceptions (see the Tate brothers case). Of course the Tate brothers case is a challenge for us, but here I am referring to the orchestrated attack against the constitutional order. I also wonder whether the release of the Tate brothers has changed our image in the eyes of the American President and Vice-President, because if the Tate brothers were the only obstacle to the economic and political security guarantees coming from our strategic partner, then surely we should be proud of this decision. I doubt it.
But I am looking forward to the presidential elections being organized, to these presidential elections passing, to Romania electing a democratic president, a president with clearly pro-Euro-Atlantic visions, and after this spring, Romania will begin to consolidate its democratic status, to strengthen its democracy, its state institutions and to rebuild citizens’ trust in the state. Because the de facto and de jure problem of Romanian democracy is that citizens no longer trust state institutions, no longer trust the state, and so the mandate of the next President of Romania will be extremely difficult.
Romania’s future president will not have to integrate Romania into the Euro-Atlantic sphere, nor will he have to organize internal affairs, because we have a stable government and there are no political crises in sight at the moment. His mandate will be a very difficult one because he will have to rebuild public confidence in the state. He will have to strengthen Romania’s multilateral cooperation network, strengthen Romania’s position internationally and strengthen strategic relations with its partners. I am referring here to the European Union and NATO.
Moreover, the European Union has sent clear messages of solidarity with Romania, it has shown us that the European Union does not doubt under any circumstances the political, constitutional and judicial decisions taken in Bucharest. I hope that this will not end in the coming period either, because we need the support of our European partners in the fight against corruption, in the fight against this hybrid action being carried out on Romanian territory. We also need security guarantees in the face of the American withdrawal from Europe and the withdrawal of American commitments to the security of Eastern Europe.
I would be glad if the President were a sovereignist in the true sense of the word, and it is the duty of the President to be a sovereignist and to defend Romania’s sovereignty, but this bunch of parasites who have parasitized the Romanian political scene are not sovereignists; they are just the loud voices of Russia in Romania. Why am I saying this? Because they do nothing but promote the Kremlin’s discourse and logic. In fact, George Simeon, the leader of AUR, the president of the National Peasant-Christian-Democratic Party, Aurelian Pavelescu, Diana Ivanovich-Soșoaca, are inviting Elon Musk and President Trump to gorge themselves on Romania’s mineral reserves and natural resources, not just those of Ukraine.
Basically, they are ready to sell Romania piecemeal to whoever serves their interests. If such a politician will become President of Romania, then in my view Romania is lost because, according to the Romanian constitutional order, Romania benefits from a bicephalous government headed by the Prime Minister, but also by the President by the nature of the exclusive power of the President in terms of Romania’s foreign policy and defense policy. I would recall the crises which the conflict between the president and the government generated in Romania under President Băsescu, under President Iohannis, who simply exercised their power over the government in Bucharest. Such a president in Romania would, in fact and in law, mean an abandonment of the Romanian citizens’ ideal of EU and NATO membership and a return to the immediate post-Decembrist period. I am referring here to the period between 1990 and 2000, when Romania was orbiting in the Russian sphere of influence, when democratic order did not exist, when the opposition was silenced with totalitarian practices and violent practices; when, quite simply, fundamental rights and freedoms were thrown away. I am convinced that the Romanian electorate will be extremely lucid and will have the political discernment to demonstrate not only to Europe, but to the whole world, that we are defending our country, we are defending our desires and our membership of the EU and NATO, and we are defending our fundamental rights and freedoms
Poland represented Romania at the informal meeting led by Macron, right after the start of these negotiations between the US and Russia on peace in Ukraine. In this context, how do you see the partners? Who are the most important partners for Romania in the current situation?
We all could see that Romania’s main strategic partner after the events in the United States of America is France. President Macron received the interim President of Romania, Ilie Bolojan, in Paris and assured him that France, a nuclear power and a continental European power, will under no circumstances allow Romania to end up in the same situation as Ukraine. President Macron also gave assurances that he is ready to supplement the French military presence on Romanian territory. Britain is a reliable partner for Romania. The British Prime Minister has given assurances that Romania will not be abandoned in this geopolitical game that Putin and Trump are playing.
I can say that I am confident that Poland in its bilateral talks with Washington does not eliminate either Romania or the Baltic States from the agenda. However, Romania’s problem is that it does not have a clear vision in terms of continental alliances, in terms of security cooperation. We have initiated the B9 cooperation format, we are equal partners with Poland in the Three Seas Initiative, but Romania does not currently have an overall vision, a consolidated vision of European security and defense. And it is understandable, because until now Eastern Europe has relied exclusively on the American security umbrella and the American presence in the region, but the question is, what will we do if the United States decides to withdraw from its security commitments to Eastern Europe? What will happen if Putin tries to force Trump’s hand and demands that Eastern Europe enter the Russian geopolitical sphere of influence? It is clear that we cannot defend ourselves.
This is precisely why the position of the interim president of Romania, Ilie Bolojan, seems to me to be extremely coherent and common sense. He went to Paris and asked for security guarantees for Romania. Moreover, the historical relations between Romania and France prevent us from breaking this link, prevent us from not wanting to be France’s partner. Somehow, Romania should return to its old political and military alliances because France, however much some people may not like it, is a guarantor of European security. It is a nuclear power, it is a political power, it is a force to be reckoned with on the international stage. Romania should now reorient itself, diversify its strategic security partnerships and obtain guarantees to protect us in the event of an attack. Because what we’ve seen these days is a paradigm shift in terms of security alliances, in terms of NATO’s ability to intervene because Donald Trump has reduced Articles 4 and 5 to a mere political will and not an obligation to defend any NATO member state that is attacked.
In my view, it is a mistake that Romania after the annulled presidential elections did not summon the allies under Article 4 of the NATO treaty to consult with them, with its partners. Because Romania, as President Duda of Poland said, as President Macron said, as President Steinmeier of Germany said, Romania has been attacked; Romania has been under a hybrid attack and I expect the Romanian state institutions, the politicians at the top, to act and to convene, for goodness sake, those consultations under Article 4 of the NATO Treaty. So, yes, we rely on France, we rely on Great Britain, we rely on the European economic powers, and here I am referring to Spain, Germany, Italy and our Polish partner, and I expect Romania to start developing relations with, for example, Bulgaria, Turkey and, why not, Greece.
Photo: Cătălin-Gabriel Done (source: euxglob.ro)
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