The other days, the Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR) organized the “Make Europe Great Again” conference at the Parliament, or MEGA, a name inspired by the slogan of former US President Donald Trump.
During the event that took place between April 27 and 28, several figures from the Romanian conservative sphere took the floor, such as AUR president George Simion, but also the president of the AUR National Management Council, Claudiu Târziu. International representatives of the conservative scene were also invited to speak, such as Dr. Robert Malone, Sherronna Bishop, MEPs Nicolas Bay and Ryszard Czarnecki, Morten Messerschmidt, president of the Danish People’s Party, Bruce LeVell, representative of the Trump administration and Eduardo Verastegui, founder and president of the “Viva Mexico Movement”.
Incidentally, George Simion and AUR showed their closeness to American ultra-conservatives and Trump supporters by President Simion’s visit to the US in February 2024, where he attended a conservative conference called the “Conservative Political Action Conference” (CPAC) . Here, the AUR leader gave several speeches in English and spoke with supporters of former President Donald Trump and ultra-conservative and far-right leaders.
However, it is not clear how adherent the ultra-conservative doctrine, so popular in the United States, is to the Romanian public with conservative tendencies.
Political scientist Cristian Pîrvulescu, dean of the Faculty of Political Sciences within the SNSPA, is of the opinion that the AUR has taken over sovereignist, anti-globalist and anti-progressive ideas, based on the idea that individual freedom is dangerous, but he says that it is not a new line, the one on which George Simion’s party is going.
“It’s not a new line. It is anti-abortion, anti-LGBTQ and generally against all freedom. The point is that individual freedom means debauchery, and debauchery means an offense to religious values. It is the obstinate promotion of religious values against common sense. I say this because the 2022 census shows us that, in Romania, the decrease in the number of believers who identify themselves as Orthodox was dramatic. From 89% to 74%. 9% do not declare their religious orientation, which means that they do not recognize themselves as part of the majority,” says the political scientist.
Cristian Pîrvulescu recalls the fact that the Referendum for the Family and the Coalition for the Family are also an emanation of the extremist currents taken over from the USA.
“Don’t forget that, to a large extent, the Family Coalition is a creation of the ‘alt-right’ currents (no right-wing alternative, far-right movement, more popular online and in the United States of America, which an alternative to mass conservatism) Americans, especially coming from the ultra-religious and particularly Pentecostal area, because Pentecostals are the most dynamic worldwide from this point of view, and Romania, for them, had become, like the Republic of Moldova otherwise, a kind of pilot, in the sense that Brazil was a pilot in Latin America, where Bolsonaro followed the same line and was baptized Pentecostal in 2016 in Israel,” says Pîrvulescu.
The political scientist also says that AUR addresses an audience of 20-25%, which represents the “hard core” of the ultra-conservative group, and the battle is primarily about education.
“For 2500 years the battle has been on education. They want to seize education and remove the issue of freedom, other than religious freedom, from this area of education. Because education, including during the communist period, could not greatly alter the idea of freedom. They try to turn freedom into a sin, which is downright unchristian, but for deterministic neo-protestant movements, which believe that man is predetermined from birth, there is no contradiction. For the Orthodox, however, it is a serious problem, on which they do not reflect”, he emphasizes.
Cristian Pîrvulescu points out the fact that those from AUR did not really succeed in their strategy to influence the population and that they cannot transpose the program from the States to Romania.
“This is the attempt I am making, but the question is whether I can succeed. I do not think. Beyond the fact that they have managed to influence a part of the population, in reality they are not very successful. I can’t get the program from there. They need something. They need a vector. They tried to build, and unfortunately the USR entered this game, an anti-Johannism. That Iohannis is guilty of everything, he is a traitor, he was not an Orthodox Christian, he was German, he was not Romanian, so he had no quality. They tried in 2018 to turn a referendum for the traditional family into an anti-Iohannis referendum. It didn’t work”, said the political scientist.
Professor Cristian Pîrvulescu states that George Simion is in no way a “vector” and that he has already reached his potential, and AUR is unable to move on.
“The problem is that Simion is not a vector. He fails to be Bardella (no Jordan Bardella, the president of the National Reunion party in France, Marine Le Pen’s party and the most popular French politician at the moment). Bardella succeeds very well in France in representing this anti-Macron trend. Macron tried to counter it with a clone of himself, which is Prime Minister Attal, but it doesn’t work, it doesn’t catch. Well, they haven’t and that’s actually why they can’t move on. Simion has reached his potential and is now already on the downward slope. It is likely that Ciolacu, if he wants to run as a single candidate, will try to revive and help Simion, that he needs him in the second round, which for the party would be a chance”, he adds .
The political scientist also says that AUR has taken over the ideas of the extreme right, which are also found in the West, and is trying to induce the idea in the public space that the country is “in decline”.
“But they took these ideas, you know that they are also part of the discourse of the Western extreme right, that is, you will also find it in the Freedom Party in the Netherlands, the Freedom Party in Austria, to some extent in the Italian League. I mean, pro-farmers, anti-ecologists, anti-climate, all these elements you find, which are part of “Make America great again” and “Make Europe great again”, “make Romania great again” . Romania has never been great, as great as it is now, this is the whole problem, but they are trying to impose this illusion in the public debate that Romania is actually in decline, and they are not alone. It seems to me that opinion polls are also trying to create this situation”, concluded professor Cristian Pîrvulescu.
The “Make Europe Great Again” conference was organized by the “Mihai Eminescu” Conservative Institute, an organization led by AUR senator Claudiu Târziu, president of the AUR National Management Council.
During the conference, several important figures of the conservative scene in the USA and in Europe spoke.
Among them is Jack Posobiec, a well-known Trump supporter on Twitter and famous for breaking the “Pizzagate” conspiracy, which claimed that Hillary Clinton ran a ring that sexually abused children in a northwest Washington pizzeria, reported CNN, according to HotNews.
Another character who made an appearance at the event is Dr. Robert Malone, who claims to be the inventor of messenger RNA technology and is now spreading false information about COVID and vaccines against the disease.
Alveda King, granddaughter of black rights activist Martin Luther King Jr., also spoke at the event.
She is an anti-abortion campaigner, and in 2010 she compared LGBT marriage to “genocide,” according to ABC News, HotNews cites. She is also a supporter of Donald Trump, and in 2020 she was part of the advisory group Voices of Color for Donald Trump.
The name of the event “Make Europe Great Again” refers to the slogan “Make America Great Again” with which Donald Trump won the US elections in 2016.
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