Romania’s Electoral Coup Is a Blow to Europe

This past weekend, Romania’s electoral commission disqualified the frontrunner nationalist candidate, Calin Georgescu, from participating in May’s upcoming presidential contest, the latest development in an electoral saga started with the controversial cancellation of the presidential elections last December. Vice President J.D. Vance and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard already criticized the cancelling of the first round of elections as an example of democratic backsliding in the EU, but the latest developments present a geopolitical threat to American interests in an already volatile region, as well as a dire warning for the future of nationalist and anti-interventionist European parties.  

In addition to representing a clear insult to the Trump administration, which Georgescu openly embraces, the EU is sending a clear warning to other members that populist-nationalist parties will not be allowed to gain power despite winning elections. To dispel any doubt about the larger meaning of this, during a discussion about the possibility of the Alternative for Deutschland (AfD) coming to power, the former EU Commissioner Thierry Breton blatantly declared, “We did it in Romania, and obviously we will do it in Germany.” Washington must be clear-eyed about the kind of intransigent European Union leadership it will deal with for the foreseeable future, and conservatives in America must be similarly aware of the obstacles their European counterparts are likely to face. With leaders such as Ursula von der Leyen, Brussels represents the center of globalism and will be an ideological enemy to MAGA and any Trump-friendly European allies.    

The context of the Romanian saga is that Georgescu, a former UN diplomat maliciously described as “far right” in the Western press for his Trumpesque populist-nationalist views, was poised to win the presidency in the second round last year, after placing first in the initial round of voting. The Romanian Constitutional Court, in an unprecedented move in Romania’s post–Cold War democratic history, nullified the election based on alleged classified evidence provided by local intelligence services concerning Russian interference via TikTok. That such a ridiculous excuse of Russian support on TikTok would be considered sufficient reason to overturn an otherwise free and fair election in an EU country is exactly why Vance, along with Elon Musk and Kari Lake, recently criticized Romania’s electoral machinations in social media postings . 

In a move resembling the way Iran’s ayatollahs decide which candidates are ideologically reliable enough to be trusted with continuing the Islamist theocratic regime, Romania’s top court considered Georgescu’s views to be a threat to “the constitutional order and Romania’s Euro-Atlantic partnership.” And as unbelievable as it may sound for the highest court of a democratic EU and NATO member, this is the second time this election cycle the court banned a candidate from running for office based on this accusation of essentially advocating a nationalist, Eurosceptic foreign policy. Last year, Diana Sosoaca was similarly accused of representing a danger to national security for her conservative nationalist positions.   

In a bitter irony, advocating for a ceasefire in Ukraine and refusing to continue Romania’s unconditional support for that war, essentially the same policy adopted by the Trump administration, made Georgescu unacceptable to the Romanian judges and bureaucrats because of his supposed pro-Russian and therefore anti-Western views. Embracing peace in Ukraine and criticizing military interventionist policies as core principles of his campaign was deemed a threat to Romania’s national security, a bizarre allegation that only makes sense to the European Union current leaders. Declaring opposing points of view illegal and dangerous is a Soviet practice that, unfortunately, some Romanian judges and leaders may have internalized a little too well during their communist youth.

As Vance eloquently emphasized in his speech at the Munich Security Conference in front of a stunned audience, the growing gap in transatlantic values is a dangerous trend, and EU’s departure from democratic norms will make transatlantic cooperation more difficult. Romanian politicians often talk about democracy and the rule of law as key American and European values Romanians should aspire to after the tragic Cold War experience of Soviet-imposed communism and dictatorship. Yet the Romanian people have just been stripped of the most basic democratic right of choosing their own president with the explicit blessing of the very same European elites that style themselves unironically as defenders of democracy and the rule of law. 

Some may wonder whether an America First foreign policy rightly focused on China and the Western Hemisphere should even bother with the follies of European politics, but in this case the answer is yes—within limits. What, then, should be the prudent realist response to the Romanian coup? 

While not a top European power, Romania is nevertheless the EU’s sixth largest country, and has been a valuable local American ally by hosting the American Mihail Kogalniceanu Air Base (MKAB) on the Black Sea littoral and the Aegis Ashore Missile Defense System at Deveselu. Romanians value these military installations as a potential defense against Russian aggression much more than the U.S. does. This gives Washington important leverage; the administration could make this continued military support explicitly contingent on guarantees that other populist nationalist leaders such as George Simion (whom Georgescu now endorsed) will not be prevented from participating in the elections, or from serving as president should he win. Romania’s status as a free and democratic state could also be revisited by the State Department, and the U.S. should consider sanctioning the public officials who organized the electoral coup.

On a broader scale, the EU-endorsed electoral coup in Romania should also lead to an increase in public diplomacy support to like-minded nationalist European parties from the Trump administration, the MAGA movement, and other conservative groups in the United States. The American national interest is ill-served by a uniformly globalist and liberal European Union, as the difficulties in working together to end the war in Ukraine make abundantly clear.