Vladimir Mitev
Dumitru Dobrev is one of the key lawyers who worked for the NGOs that opposed the sodium cyanide mining project in Roșia Montană, which, after more than 20 years of legal battles, ended in 2024 with an arbitration ruling in favour of the Romanian state. Dobrev is also one of the founders of the Save Romania Union party, the party of the new political and civic elites that came together during and after the 2013 protests against the Roșia Montană project. However, Dobrev left the party a few years after its founding because he disagreed with the way a USR minister chose his collaborators from among people who had collaborated with the former Securitate before 1989. More recently, Dobrev has supported Romania’s civic sector, as well as the mayor of Bucharest, Nicușor Dan, who began his political career as a candidate for a non-governmental organisation and was elected president of Romania in the May 2025 presidential elections.
The interview took place on 21 May 2025.
Mr Dobrev, for the first time in Romania’s modern history, we have a president with an NGO background. What role will the NGO sector play in political and social life from now on, while Nicușor Dan is president?
I think it is possible that a political force could coalesce, as the USR did in the past, but that would be for the next elections, which will be in 2028. However, President Nicușor Dan cannot be a member of a party, because that is the law in our country.
I don’t think the USR has the energy to channel all these forces. Sometime in 2017 or 2018, I don’t remember exactly, it was seen as the party of civic forces, but at the moment the USR is considered compromised/inefficient/lacking in political flair and people no longer trust them. I think it’s possible that those who supported Nicușor Dan, the NGOs, will try to create small, extra-parliamentary parties – SENS, REPER, etc.
You know that there are some who supported Nicu Ștefănuță when he became a Member of the European Parliament. Maybe something will come of that. But I anticipate that in the coming years, when these big parties, the PSD, PNL, USR and UDMR, form a government, or we have a minority government (PNL, USR, UDMR), there will be many conflicts within this government. Because these are four very different parties. There are quite significant disagreements between them. And then there are differences, and even if there is a PSD-led government, there will probably be tendencies in this direction.
And then, at some point, there will probably be discontent, in the sense that the pace of reforms is not what it should be. And then there will probably be room for an alternative political force, because if the PSD ends up with 12%, as it is now, the sovereignists cannot cover the entire left-wing electorate, for example, because they have conservative beliefs – ‘Greater Romania’ like in the interwar period, women should have children and stay at home cooking, farming and things like that. These ideas are not left-wing. The sovereignists are in favour of expropriation, economic autarchy, i.e. producing everything in our own country, nationalising energy resources, etc. Some of these ideas may be partly left-wing, but they are not all left-wing, and in any case, if all their ideas were implemented, the country would end up in a bailout like Greece in 2010.
On this side of the political spectrum, something else could be done. A new centre-left party could emerge from the educated urban youth who do not vote for the sovereignists, and part of the diaspora could be won back.
Those educated urban young people who voted for Nicu Ștefănuță?
Yes, the young people who voted for Nicu Ștefănuță and who have now voted for Nicușor Dan. Otherwise, there is a risk that they will stay at home and the sovereignists will fill the void left in the political spectrum. Because the sovereignists are very disciplined.
I interviewed Sergiu Mișcoiu, who I think you know is a supporter of Nicușor Dan, and Andrei Marga, who I suspect is moving towards the sovereignist camp. They both said the same things – their analyses of the problems of Romanian society and the solutions they think are possible with Nicușor Dan as president coincided.
In other words, both said that the parties are in crisis, not just the PSD. Pretty much all the parties, or the old parties. And they were hoping that Nicușor Dan would harness the energy of the people and, in general, the civic trend to somehow reform the parties.
But it wasn’t very clear to me whether this was possible, whether it was his intention, whether he had the resources and prerogatives or the ability to carry out such a renovation of the political system. What do you think?
I don’t think so, because the president has no powers in this regard. And secondly, it is difficult to imagine that the parties would draw energy from newcomers to politics to reform themselves, how shall I put it, so radically and transform the current kleptocracies into meritocracies. The big parties have structures, they have inertia.
They cannot easily accept people from civil society and put them in decision-making positions. I do not believe that Romanian parties are capable of such a thing. I believe they are capable, at most, of making some concessions and promoting the most capable people they already have in leadership positions within the current leadership structures. But to go so far as to say, “Look, we are opening our doors and welcoming people from civil society,” as was the case with Victoria Stoiciu in the PSD, is a very rare phenomenon.
The PSD has done this before, but, how can I put it, the PSD does it selectively, once every five years, and not in key positions. It’s more to boast about and to say to the European socialists, look, we have people like this we can parade around Brussels.
Basically, these people are more for show, to demonstrate that we are also European. However, it would be too much for them, knowing the mentality there, to suddenly say, “We should open our doors and welcome people in”. And for us, the old leadership, to take a step back. I don’t think that’s possible. That’s because their reflex, in all these 35 years, when they were forced to do something, was to do something cosmetic; they are masters of Potemkin villages.
That’s why I think that the most they can do is try to mimic, and in the worst case, give themselves a ‘golden parachute’.
Plus, there is a reluctance on the part of civil society to join political parties.
For civil society people the world of political parties is discredited.
Yes. I mean, the reluctance is on both sides. That’s how I see it.
You said you’ve been waiting for patchwork solutions by the government for the next three years.
Patchwork, yes. I mean, to repair… Piece by piece.
So that means that Nicușor Dan, these two or three years, is going to educate himself – what it means to be president, how the job is done. He won’t be very active in this regard, he won’t be offensive, perhaps…
He will be more of a negotiator. At least for the first period, until he sees his government.
That means he will first have to give him the government, first see this government established, then he will have to give him two or three months to… If there are new people who need to get used to those ministries/agencies, to see what problems there are… After that, when he sees that some are not up to the job, then he will try a reshuffle.
But for that you have to give the minister six months to see that he is not performing well before you talk to the prime minister about a reshuffle. And it is essential that he gets on well with the person who will be prime minister. Let’s say Bolojan, so that there are no differences between them, no disputes. If disputes arise, as they did between Băsescu and Tăriceanu, the whole thing goes to hell.
What can be guessed or assumed or imagined about his foreign policy? That he has prerogatives in foreign affairs. What do you expect the general direction of his foreign policy to be?
I suspect it will be oriented towards the hard core, Franco-German, of the European Union. He will probably get along well with Meloni (we have a very important diaspora in Italy), because he is a centre-right democrat.
I don’t know if you’ve heard of Corneliu Coposu or Ion Rațiu, two politicians who defined the 1990s and the rebirth of the centre-right. Nicușor Dan’s political and economic views are similar. Domestically, he is like the CDU, the German Christian Democrats, or their Bavarian Christian Social allies.
Nicușor’s ideological foundations, but also his view of politics, his views on the economy and the world, through a socio-economic lens, are those of a Christian Democrat. And that’s why I think he’ll get along quite well with the leaders in that area, such as the new Chancellor Friedrich Merz and Giorgia Meloni. That’s pretty much it, he’s not a left-wing man.
I think he will close ranks with Donald Tusk in Poland. Because you saw that Tusk supported him before the elections.
He has a special relationship with France. He studied there. He speaks French and was strongly supported by President Macron. I think he will have a very good relationship with France as well. So, I think that’s the area where he will gravitate. France, Germany, Poland, maybe Italy, around there, and certainly with the Republic of Moldova and the Baltic states. I think he will stay very close to these countries. With the United States, I think he will be quite cautious and will try not to irritate Trump, especially since there are some in the Washington administration, especially in the MAGA group, who do not like him. It is not out of the question that he will visit and be interested in closer relations with Kyiv.
Photo: Nicușor Dan (source: YouTube)
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