Romanian presidential candidates Bucharest Mayor Nicușor Dan and AUR party leader George Simion have offered sharply differing attitudes to support for Ukraine in their first television debate, hosted by Euronews Romania.
The Romanian election is viewed as existential for the country's future, but it will also impact Central and Eastern Europe and the EU as a whole. The bloc is struggling to maintain a unified line of support for Ukraine and ramp up the continent’s defence capacity in the face of vacillating support from US President Donald Trump.
Hard-right frontrunner Simion, who secured 40.5% of the votes in the repeat contest’s first round held on Sunday, cited data suggesting more than six million Romanians are working abroad. “EU funds should not go to Ukraine, to anyone other than European citizens, to Romanians and Romanians' children,” he told an audience of supporters of the two candidates in the Aula Magna of the Polytechnic University of Romania, adding: “We see Indians, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis on the streets of Romania. Third world citizens come and our citizens leave.”
Asked by debate moderators Andra Diaconescu, editor-in-chief of Euronews Romania, and Monica Mihai, Euronews’ political editor, how he would vote for a new aid package for Ukraine if he represented Romania in the EU Council, Simion replied: “My country is Romania, I will vote only in accordance with the interests of the Romanian nation and without prioritizing other states.”
He stated that his position “towards Russia's war of aggression is neutrality, not escalation, not feeding with weapons, and perfect alignment with the policies of our strategic partner, the Trump administration.”
For defence, he told the audience, “we have NATO not the EU, the EU has other tasks than security."
Meanwhile Bucharest mayor and independent candidate Nicușor Dan, who came in second after leapfrogging the ruling big tent candidate Crin Antonescu in a dramatic finish to Sunday's vote count, maintained his strongly pro-European positions.
On how he would vote in the Council on support for Ukraine, Dan said Romania and Moldova’s security depends crucially on how the war in Ukraine will end. “Russia is the aggressor, there needs to be a just peace that suits Ukraine, otherwise we are giving way to further regional tensions.”
“Romania's participation in the EU's rearmament program is important, but part of the funds must come to Romania for our economic development,” Dan said.
Dan put Simion on the spot, asking him if Romania would vote against EU support for Ukraine under his leadership.
“I was very clear, I will put Romania’s interests first. The EU does not exist as an entity, but of 27 states which compose the EU. Our position must be in our national interest, not on our knees,” said Simion.
“So with a Romania led by Simion, Romania will block support for Ukraine,” Dan affirmed, while Simion hit back: “Romania will not give one cent for another country, but we will concentrate on our own population.”
Both candidates condemned Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine however. With Simion adding that the Russian president “must be arrested for war crimes”, he added that “I pray to God this war ends” and that “the Russian Federation feeds on chaos and frozen conflicts.”
However, when pressed by the Euronews Romania journalists about Russian disinformation campaigns, including narratives on purported oppression of national minorities in Ukraine, Simion repeated his own long-standing view on the situation of ethnic Romanians in Ukraine: “Ukraine needs us, not us them, so they need to respect the national rights of the half of million of Romanians living in Ukraine. And we want compensation of Romania’s participation to the war effort.”
Simion then appealed to Romanian mothers “not to send their children to war”, while Dan insisted that “You have to prevent a war so that the mothers he mentions don't have to send their children to war.”
Elsewhere in the debate Simion touted respect for Hungary’s Viktor Orban during the debate, saying: “It’s time for a Europe of nations, of Christians, we will fight for our right to be European citizens.”
Dan meanwhile lamented Romania’s lack of preparation for the hybrid warfare that led to the annulment of the earlier election.
He said that the Romanian state must work with firms that are global leaders in cyber security, adding: “We need to draw on the experience of our brothers in Moldova because they were subjected to a hybrid attack in the previous elections and managed to control it, but Romania didn’t.”
