Romania’s European allies and markets welcomed centrist Nicusor Dan’s presidential election victory over the euroskeptic hard-right on Sunday, relieved that the EU member avoided a lurch to a Donald Trump-inspired political path.
Dan, a softly spoken 55-year-old mathematician and Bucharest mayor, won 54 percent of the votes in the nation of 19 million, beating rival George Simion, a vocal Trump admirer whose strong showing in the first round of voting this month had rattled allies and investors.
Dan had campaigned on a pledge to fight corruption, maintain support for Ukraine — where Romania has played an important logistical role — and keep the country firmly within the European mainstream.
Photo: AP
In contrast, Simion, a 38-year-old nationalist, had been critical of EU leadership and opposed military aid to Ukraine, and his strong position before Sunday’s run-off had caused the collapse of Romania’s pro-Western coalition government.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen was one of the first to congratulate Dan.
“The Romanian people have turned out massively to the polls,” she wrote on X. “They have chosen the promise of an open, prosperous Romania in a strong Europe.”
European Council President Antonio Costa said he welcomed working with Dan.
“From city hall to the table of the European Council,” he said. “This is a strong signal of Romanians’ attachment to the European project.”
Moldovan President Maia Sandu called the result “a step forward for democratic values and our shared European path.”
After years of rising nationalist sentiment in Europe, the EU was increasingly uneasy about the prospect of a shift to the hard-right in Romania.
Analysts had said victory for Simion would have risked isolating Romania abroad and destabilizing NATO’s eastern flank.
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk applauded the result, as did French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz.
“Despite numerous attempts at manipulation, Romanians tonight chose democracy, the rule of law, and the European Union,” Macron wrote on X, in Romanian.
The election took place nearly six months after the initial ballot was canceled because of alleged Russian interference — denied by Moscow — in favor of far-right frontrunner Calin Georgescu, who was banned from standing again.
Russian-born Pavel Durov, the founder of the Telegram messaging app, accused the head of France’s foreign intelligence agency of asking him to ban Romanian conservative voices ahead of the election, adding that he refused the request.
The intelligence agency denied the allegations.
Asked about Durov’s comments, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that it was not news that European states such as France, Britain and Germany interfered in the affairs of other countries and said that the vote’s conduct had been “strange, to say the least,” state news agency TASS reported.
Analyst Radu Magdin said Dan’s contrast to Simion’s bluster helped as the campaign drew to a close and he would pursue a common sense foreign policy.
“He will cultivate the Trump administration as much as possible while remaining a staunch European,” Magdin said.
‘ABUSE OF POWER’: Lee Chun-yi allegedly used a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a pet grooming salon and take his wife to restaurants, media reports said Control Yuan Secretary-General Lee Chun-yi (李俊俋) resigned on Sunday night, admitting that he had misused a government vehicle, as reported by the media. Control Yuan Vice President Lee Hung-chun (李鴻鈞) yesterday apologized to the public over the issue. The watchdog body would follow up on similar accusations made by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and would investigate the alleged misuse of government vehicles by three other Control Yuan members: Su Li-chiung (蘇麗瓊), Lin Yu-jung (林郁容) and Wang Jung-chang (王榮璋), Lee Hung-chun said. Lee Chun-yi in a statement apologized for using a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a
Taiwan yesterday denied Chinese allegations that its military was behind a cyberattack on a technology company in Guangzhou, after city authorities issued warrants for 20 suspects. The Guangzhou Municipal Public Security Bureau earlier yesterday issued warrants for 20 people it identified as members of the Information, Communications and Electronic Force Command (ICEFCOM). The bureau alleged they were behind a May 20 cyberattack targeting the backend system of a self-service facility at the company. “ICEFCOM, under Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party, directed the illegal attack,” the warrant says. The bureau placed a bounty of 10,000 yuan (US$1,392) on each of the 20 people named in
The High Court yesterday found a New Taipei City woman guilty of charges related to helping Beijing secure surrender agreements from military service members. Lee Huei-hsin (李慧馨) was sentenced to six years and eight months in prison for breaching the National Security Act (國家安全法), making illegal compacts with government employees and bribery, the court said. The verdict is final. Lee, the manager of a temple in the city’s Lujhou District (蘆洲), was accused of arranging for eight service members to make surrender pledges to the Chinese People’s Liberation Army in exchange for money, the court said. The pledges, which required them to provide identification
INDO-PACIFIC REGION: Royal Navy ships exercise the right of freedom of navigation, including in the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea, the UK’s Tony Radakin told a summit Freedom of navigation in the Indo-Pacific region is as important as it is in the English Channel, British Chief of the Defence Staff Admiral Tony Radakin said at a summit in Singapore on Saturday. The remark came as the British Royal Navy’s flagship aircraft carrier, the HMS Prince of Wales, is on an eight-month deployment to the Indo-Pacific region as head of an international carrier strike group. “Upholding the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, and with it, the principles of the freedom of navigation, in this part of the world matters to us just as it matters in the
RSS