The Economist: Romania’s hard-right seems strong in a four-election year; George Simion’s AUR party is expecting its best result

It is not clear that most populist nationalists believe that Europe was ever great. But “Make Europe Great Again” was the slogan on the baseball caps worn at a hard-right international conference in Bucharest, organized at the end of April by the Alliance for Romanian Unity (AUR), the country’s anti-immigration nationalist party , shows an article published by The Economist magazine.

The speakers denounced the “invasion” of Europe by Muslims and of America by illegal migrants. There was prolonged applause when Donald Trump’s name was mentioned and when speakers denounced homosexual and trans “ideology” and “Godless” bureaucrats in Brussels.

For AUR, the event, held in the vast halls of the parliament building, was less about the formation of international unity than about the national campaign.

Romania is holding four sets of elections this year. The party is adept at advertising: its TikTok videos are clever; its huge election posters feature Vlad Dracula, the Romanian medieval hero and prince also known as Vlad Ţepes.

The election results “will set the political agenda for the next ten years”, says Remus Stefureac, head of Inscop Research, a polling firm.

On June 9, Romanians vote in the European and local elections. Later in the year, they will vote in the presidential and parliamentary elections.

Romanians were shocked when AUR, a party founded in 2019, took 9.1% of the votes in the following year’s general elections.

The current government is a grand coalition formed by center-right liberals and center-left social democrats.

For much of 2023 AUR was the second most popular party with around 20% support in opinion polls (it has since dropped to 17%).

That led the ruling parties to run on a common list for the European elections.

Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu promised that “he will defend Romania from extremism”.

The four main pillars of the AUR program are freedom, Christianity, family and “unity of the nation”.

They are vague enough to attract a wide range of supporters, including right-wing xenophobes, opponents of gay marriage and eco-nationalists who believe that foreign firms are unfairly exploiting Romania’s natural resources.

The party is also popular, Mr. Stefureac says, among Romanians abroad, who feel that snobbish Westerners treat them as second-class Europeans.

The alliance between the two big centrist parties created more space for the radical opposition. Although AUR leader George Simion says that Vladimir Putin and other Russian leaders are “murderers”, many see the party as subtly pro-Russian.

His emphasis on national unity can be interpreted as meaning that he wants to annex parts of Ukraine that belonged to Romania until 1940.

Mr. Simion says that it is impossible “to go back 100 years ago”, but that “we want the rights of Romanians living in Ukraine now to be respected.”

Simion fought for a long time for the union with Moldova, the majority of which was Romanian until 1940, and which now bans him as a security threat.

Most Romanians see Russia as an oppressive imperial power and a pro-Russian party has around 5% in the polls.

Mr. Simion is now moving away from his radical roots. Giorgia Meloni, the prime minister of Italy, had a similar path; and he sees her as a role model.

Leaving the EU would be “a disaster”, he says, but “We don’t want a superstate”. Perhaps they are looking at the polls: a poll conducted by Globsec, a think-tank, found that 71% of Romanians believe that the EU dictates Romania’s policy, which has no power to influence it.

Meanwhile, 38% of Romanians think that far-right nationalism is a threat — about as much as they think that non-European migrants are a danger.

The turn to the center may attract more votes for AUR this year. They will have four chances, concludes The Economist.

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