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.
A signaling system malfunction disrupted high-speed rail (HSR) services beginning at 8am today, with trains temporarily reduced to three northbound and three southbound trains per hour as authorities conduct inspections. The malfunction occurred on a section of track in Miaoli County during pre-operation checks early this morning, forcing northbound and southbound trains to use a single track, the HSR operator said. The regular schedule has been replaced with three hourly trains offering only nonreserved seating in each direction, stopping at every station, it said, adding that business class cars would still have reserved seating. Departures from terminal stations are scheduled at the top
Taiwan is still in the process of assessing the possibility of recruiting workers from Eswatini, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday, adding that its goal is to help Eswatini upgrade its vocational training centers. If there are plans to recruit workers from Eswatini, safeguarding national security, protecting public health and ensuring the employment rights of Taiwanese would be prerequisites, Department of West Asian and African Affairs Director-General Yen Chia-liang (顏嘉良) told a news conference. Key considerations would also include filling labor shortages in specific industries, and fostering bilateral professional and technical exchanges, he said. Yen was asked about the progress of labor
A US uncrewed surface vessel (USV) encountered multiple Chinese warships during an autonomous transit of the Taiwan Strait, US defense company Seasats said in a statement on Wednesday. Seasats announced that a Lightfish USV had completed the first autonomous transit of the Taiwan Strait. Over five days, the USV traversed the entire length of the Strait while constantly monitoring surface vessel traffic, the company said. The Lightfish encountered multiple Chinese warships, one of which was a Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) Type 056 corvette, it said. The Chinese vessels were operating “well within Taiwan’s exclusive economic zone without transmitting their identity via the
VERBOSE VESSELS: A CGA cutter and a China Coast Guard exchanged verbal barbs for more than a day in Taiwanese-controlled waters before the Chinese vessel left The Taiwanese and Chinese coast guards had a standoff near the strategically located Pratas Islands (Dongsha Islands, 東沙群島) in the north of the South China Sea, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said yesterday. The two sides engaged in intense radio exchanges over sovereignty claims during the 33-hour standoff. China Coast Guard vessel 3501 eventually left the restricted waters, 26.6 nautical miles (49.2km) west of the Pratas Islands, at 5pm yesterday, the CGA said. Lying approximately between southern Taiwan and Hong Kong, the Taiwan-controlled Pratas are seen by some security experts as vulnerable to Chinese attack due to their distance — more than
RSS