Nova news, May 16, 2025
The program Your Day returns after the commercials, and we turn our attention to our northern neighbor. This weekend, we will see the results of the presidential elections in Romania. The second round is coming up. There is a fierce battle between the two candidates. According to opinion polls, their results are very close.
We will now discuss this with Vladimir Mitev, journalist and author of the Bulgarian-Romanian blog The Bridge of Friendship. We should have a live connection with him on Viber.
Hello, Mr. Mitev, and thank you for inviting us!
Hello!
Tell us quickly, what is happening? How is the campaign going? What do the polls show?
Let me start by saying that you cannot trust opinion polls. Both in last year’s canceled elections and in the current ones, there were polls that gave an error of over 15% compared to the actual election results.
Indeed, there seems to be a mobilization in support of Nicușor Dan.
His rival, who had a big lead in the first round, has made some mistakes. For example, George Simion thanked the US administration for returning American visas to Romanians. This does not seem very patriotic and does not appear to be an act of defending Romania’s interests.
Moreover, George Simion is positioning himself in a more confrontational manner. At the same time, Nicușor Dan never accuses George Simion’s voters of any wrongdoing. He only criticizes George Simion himself. Perhaps this is a premise for Nicușor Dan to appear as the more moderate, more dialogue-oriented candidate, or the candidate who could develop further and guarantee greater public peace.
But we will have to see how voters cast their ballots on Sunday. In fact, the elections have already begun in the diaspora. Voter turnout is currently higher in the diaspora than in the first round. In other words, there is a great deal of mobilization, probably in support of both candidates.
Mr. Mitev, is George Simion really that radical? Is he really that different from everything the Romanian political system has seen so far? And if he is elected, could he really pose a threat to the entire EU?
Let me remind our viewers that Romania is a semi-presidential republic, and some of the decisions that have to be taken at European level have to be taken by a full majority. That means it can be a brake on important decisions, such as those on new sanctions against Russia.
I was in Bucharest between the two rounds of voting, and from the conversations I had with various people of different persuasions, I get the feeling that tensions are lower now than when Călin Georgescu was on the verge of winning the election. In my opinion, Călin Georgescu is somehow the most radical figure. George Simion has taken some steps that make him perhaps more acceptable from a European point of view.
He was accepted for a meeting a few days ago by Polish President Andrzej Duda. And, on the other hand, he was also accepted in Italy by Georgia Meloni. These are figures who are politicians at the European level, even if they are sovereignists, meaning they also have a certain openness towards Donald Trump. The expectation is that George Simion is perhaps more integrated into the “system” than Georgescu.
Of course, George Simion has made some radical statements, as I said. For example, he allowed himself to post a question on his blog that sounded like a threat to Nicușor Dan’s voters. He said, “What should I do to you after these elections?” It sounded rather vengeful.
So we can’t really judge what will happen next. But in any case, I think that George Simion’s contacts and the support he has from politicians at European level are different from the attitude towards Georgescu. For example, Polish sovereignists in their press like to emphasize that George Simion is one of the most pro-Polish politicians in the EU.
What makes the relationship between Romania and Poland so serious that we are witnessing such meetings, such closeness between the two countries?
I ask this question because Poland is one of the closest countries to the US in the entire EU. It is one of the largest recipients of EU funds and is the new engine of Europe in terms of Eastern Europe.
There is a lot to say here. In short, in Romania there is a kind of cult of Poland on both sides of the political divide – the liberal and the sovereignist.
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk himself recorded a video message expressing his support for Nicușor Dan. For his part, Nicușor Dan says he supports the Weimar Triangle—that is, Poland, France, and Germany.
In other words, whoever wins the presidential election has a certain openness towards Poland. Relations between the two countries have been developing positively for a long time, but in the last two to three years, since the war in Ukraine began, they have intensified as relations between Poland and Hungary have deteriorated.
There was a visit to Bucharest by Prime Minister Morawiecki (in March 2023 – editor’s note), who is a member of the sovereignist Law and Justice party, after which Polish-Romanian relations reached a new level. There is cooperation in the field of defense, there is cooperation in the economic field, mutual investments. In the cultural sphere, there are ongoing projects between the two countries.
From the Romanian point of view, the motivation for these relations is perhaps the desire to get closer to a country that has greater resources and is considered a model of success in our region. Perhaps, on the Polish side, the motivation is simply Poland’s desire to establish itself as a leader in our region.
Therefore, there are signs that relations between the two countries are developing positively. And this is likely to continue after the elections.
Well, thank you very much, Vladimir Mitev, journalist and author of the Bulgarian-Romanian blog The Bridge of Friendship. We were talking about the second round of the presidential elections in Romania. You know that the race is fierce.
Both will fight for the love of the people. We will continue to follow this topic because it is extremely important not only for our northern neighbor, but also for the entire future of the European Union.
Photo: Warsaw (source: Pixabay, CC0)
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