Irina Nedeva, BNR, 21 May 2025
In the next few minutes, we will talk about Romania after the election of a pro-European and pro-Western president. What path will he follow? And what will happen to the anti-European sentiment of that minority of people who have embraced what we call sovereignty – the constant emphasis on sovereignty as the most important thing.
Also on the phone from Bucharest is journalist Vladimir Mitev, a colleague at Radio Bulgaria, but also co-author of the website Cross-Border Talks, which he runs together with a Polish journalist. Hello!
Hello!
After the geopolitical analysis you did on the election results in the previous edition (Monday), let’s now talk in depth. What can and should the winner, Nicușor Dan, do?
Our listeners will have to excuse us for our familiarity, but we are colleagues who know each other. Okay, tell us who you are looking for the answer to this question.
I looked at different people. Not just his supporters. And what our listeners will hear in a few moments is that there is, in fact, a more or less uniform opinion from different camps that there is an expectation for a certain renewal of the political class and, broadly speaking, for reform.
One of the people I spoke to about this was Sergiu Mișcoiu. He is a political scientist, often quoted by Reuters, a respected analyst who teaches at Babeș-Bolyai University in Cluj-Napoca. This is probably the best university in Romania.
Sergiu Miscoiu is a Francophone and publicly expressed his support for Nicușor Dan during the campaign. There were interesting observations about how a certain civic energy supported Nicușor Dan and perhaps this could make a difference going forward if this energy is somehow channelled in a certain direction by the new president.
Let’s listen to Sergiu Mișcoiu and then continue the conversation.
The good news is that these elections have shown that many ordinary Romanians are prepared to sacrifice their time and energy to work on collective projects.
That is why I believe that the key for Nicușor Dan from now on is to harness those forces in the country – the individual talents and groups that are willing to work almost for free to implement reforms and modern ideas for change. This would be the only possible option given the current political and economic situation. There are many threats and not many realistic solutions.
However, the fact that society is mobilising to prevent a huge catastrophe – namely, the takeover of power by the far right – is a sign of democratic vitality that can translate into concrete action, at least in the near future.
From now on, there are two possible scenarios. If the parties continue as they are, they could become very inert, as they control parliament. Very few reforms could be adopted. And all the energy we saw on election night could be exhausted quite quickly, leading to disappointment in a year or two.
On the other hand, the second, more positive scenario is based on the example of Nicușor Dan: he rose through hard work in difficult conditions and circumstances and is not particularly interested in material success. This is one of the most important lessons from his model: his lack of interest in becoming rich, in flaunting his wealth and in turning it into a political tool. All these elements could motivate young people to become more civically and perhaps politically involved in creating structures that are more resistant to attempts to take power away from the people and abuse the state for personal gain.
This could mean that Nicușor Dan is interested in creating a political party or organisation, or rebuilding the Save Romania Union. From his position, he can inspire others to follow his example and restore the initial energy of the civic movements that emerged in 2012 and 2016. This time, they may be stronger than before.
This is the positive scenario in which a new generation of politicians could emerge, free from the influence of the old guard through the established parties.
Let’s return to our conversation with Vladimir Mitev. We have just heard an excerpt from his interview with Sergiu Mișcoiu, a political scientist at Babeș-Bolyai University in Romania. Mr Mișcoiu is one of the supporters of Romania’s newly elected president, Nicușor Dan, who is pro-European. Now is the time to ask Vladimir Mitev what the supporters and sympathisers of Simion, Nicușor Dan’s nationalist opponent, think. Who did you seek out from that camp?
They are sceptical, if we look at the reactions on social media, including the statements in this interview with Sergiu Mișcoiu, from which we heard an excerpt. Simion himself trumpets that France somehow influenced the elections in Romania and that is why he wants them annulled. We will see how this develops.
But we were looking for someone who is quite intelligent, an intellectual from the older generation. He himself does not like the term ‘sovereignist’. Therefore, he himself would not want to be automatically considered a representative of this trend, but in various ways he shares understandings that also exist in the sovereignist camp. For example, he believes that Romania should orient its foreign policy towards the current American Republican administration. In addition, he has made statements in the past about the war in Ukraine that have been interpreted as pro-Russian. I am talking about Andrei Marga.
He is a former Minister of Foreign Affairs and Minister of Education, former director of the Romanian Cultural Institute and former rector of Babeș-Bolyai University. He is another person with ties to Cluj-Napoca. Some may be surprised, but Andrei Marga has made almost the same analysis of the problems Romania faces today and the solutions to these problems.
He, like Sergiu Mișcoiu, expects civic energy to somehow renew the parties, because the parties in Romania are currently in crisis. I suggest you listen to him if you want to hear what he has to say!
Let’s hear from Andrei Marga, former rector of Babeș-Bolyai University and former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Romania!
Romania has great potential, but it also has a problem with poor governance. We are now seeing that the parties that brought Romania into the current crisis want to govern again after the presidential elections, forming a new government. I am concerned about the discontent around us, which is great.
In today’s Romanian society, we have three problems that need to be solved.
Firstly, successive governments in recent years have appointed people to the administrative apparatus to satisfy the interests of various groups and to gather votes. As a result, poorly qualified and incompetent people have made decisions, and the effects of their decisions are being felt.
Secondly, there is corruption in Romania. This can only continue if the government wants to lose again.
Thirdly, there are lies in society.
I have already mentioned that the current parties want to continue governing. I think this is risky because these three problems have not been solved.
Romanian voters rejected the candidates of the traditional parties in the presidential elections. None of them made it to the final round. If we want to heal Romanian society, these parties must change radically. There is no way forward with their current leadership. Parties must be more than mere associations of interests. They must be rebuilt as political institutions. And this can be done by reviving the energy of citizens. This is how I see a way out of the three problems I have highlighted.
Finally, we must overcome the divide in Romanian society. If we continue to divide ourselves into pro-European and isolationist or sovereign citizens, we will get nowhere. The new president of Romania must be aware that if he does not eliminate this segregation from Romanian society, then he has done nothing.
That was Andrei Marga, former rector of Babeș-Bolyai University, who has a rather special opinion, but who was not, in the end, one of those who supported the pro-European candidate. And now we return to my colleague Vladimir Mitev, who is still in Bucharest. Vlado, you mentioned that the nationalist candidate who lost the presidential election, George Simion, is again contesting the election results. We remember that he did this on election day, then acknowledged his defeat, and now we understand that he has turned against France and is again contesting the election.
What is actually happening? Has he really changed his position on the election results in the space of three days?
I do not expect the elections to be cancelled, as this would create great financial and political instability. The election result is clear and there is no need to hold elections all the time. Rather, I believe that in the situation that is now emerging, in which Romania is truly choosing the heart of Europe as its foreign policy orientation, Romanian society and perhaps the state itself need to have another camp in opposition to absorb discontent if it arises from the current line.
Yes, I understand that, but let’s return to the point you made, that both Dan’s supporters and Simion’s supporters are actually talking about something that could change the political elite. And that something is civic energy. What are they actually saying?
I think that in Bulgaria we need to realise that in Romania the NGO sector is quite influential, at least compared to ours, and it is no coincidence that a hospital was recently built with 53 million euros from donations from citizens and companies to an NGO. This is a sign of the population’s trust in that organisation, but also in the civic way of doing things in society in general.
A children’s hospital?
Yes, exactly, yes.
Because there is a very similar case in our country, only that in Bulgaria it does not have such a visible successful outcome, with huge amounts of money, and we know how complicated it is in the Bulgarian context. This makes me ask you, against the backdrop of what is happening in Romania, do you think that Romania is once again gaining much more European momentum than Bulgaria?
Let’s see what happens next, because Nicușor Dan, as the champion of civic energy, will now face the old parties, which, on the one hand, people voted against in the first round, and on the other hand, these same parties supported him in the elections. In other words, a dialectical situation is being created in which Nicușor Dan will be the change, but will perhaps become more and more part of the political system. Let’s see how this dynamic plays out, because he will probably try to impose his views and agreements, but this will create resentment among some. Some will support him. Others will be against him, and so the political game will continue.
And the fact that everyone talks about corruption, including the corrupt themselves, is also something familiar in Bulgaria. I return to the question: do you think that, from what you have seen in Romania, they will cope with this complex of corruption more easily than we have? If so, why? And if not, again, why?
I think that when people talk about corruption in our region, they are not really talking about eradicating it, but rather about renewing the political elite. I would suggest, at least, that Romania now seems to be genuinely reorienting itself in a different direction, that new people will probably be brought into Romanian politics and, as a result, others who have been in power until now – for example, those associated with Klaus Iohannis’ regime – will probably take a back seat. And this will probably have to play out in some way, including at the institutional level.
And at least in this sense, I understand the fight against corruption at this stage. In Romania, after a golden age of anti-corruption under Laura Kövesi, it was decided that this fight against corruption should be stopped, curtailed or greatly weakened. And somehow I find it hard to believe that it can be resumed on such a large scale as it was under Laura Kövesi.
Now you are talking about Romania’s orientation towards the European centre and in particular towards France, the Franco-German engine, where Poland is with the Weimar Triangle. Do you think Romania will seek to boost regional European integration, for example along the Bulgaria-Greece-Western Balkans axis?
I believe that the Romanian foreign policy elite has the ambition to be, in principle, a regional leader, but they will only be able to develop those directions and those relationships where there is reciprocity. And for this I would like to bring in another of my interlocutors from recent days, Julian Mareș, who is a county councillor in Romania for the National Liberal Party. He develops relations between Romanians and citizens of south-eastern Europe through his NGO. He says that now that Romania has defined its foreign policy, we need to see in which direction other countries will define themselves and who will define themselves in this vector that Romania has chosen. Depending on this definition, we will see with whom Romania will interact and who will pass through Romania to do something in foreign policy.
Thank you. I heard a discussion with Vladimir Mitev. The entire interview with Sergiu Mișcoiu, political scientist at Babeș-Bolyai University, a public supporter of Nicușor Dan, and the interview with Andrei Marga, former rector of the same university and former foreign minister, who had positions closer to those of George Simion, can be found on Vladimir Mitev’s blog. Thank you once again for being with us.
Photo: Nicușor Dan (source: YouTube)
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