Romania’s political deadlock risks handing power to far right, PM nominee warns

Por Gabriel Gavin — POLITICOPolitics » POLITICO

Romania’s center-left opposition must urgently decide whether to support a new pro-European government or be blamed for the far right gaining control, warned the country’s potential next prime minister.

In an interview with POLITICO, European lawmaker Siegfried Mureșan said he would ask the Social Democratic Party (PSD) to back his center-right National Liberal Party (PNL) in a new vote “by the end of next week,” even though the PSD’s leadership has so far refused to do so.

“Romanian socialists are facing a moment of truth — they need to decide whether they behave as responsible European social democrats and support a pro-European government or whether they are intensifying their cooperation with the radical right, the anti-European populistic extremist party here,” said Mureșan, who is the third person tasked with forming a government since the ruling coalition lost a no-confidence vote in May.

Another failure in Bucharest would set up a divisive early election in the EU’s seventh-most-populous country, where the far right is leading the polls at a moment when populist-nationalist parties are surging in countries around Europe.

Mainstream parties in Romania — a key strategic NATO ally that has suffered some spillover from Russia’s war in Ukraine — have barely fought off the far right in a series of parliamentary and presidential elections that began in winter 2024.

PSD leader Sorin Grindeanu said on Monday that the group will not vote in favor of Mureșan’s government and would only support the formation of a government it forms part of. He has not, however, closed the door to a coalition with the far-right Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR), which has courted confrontation with Brussels and supported pro-Russian candidates. The PSD and AUR voted together to bring down the previous government earlier this year.

Mureșan called on the EU’s center-left S&D group leadership in Brussels to prevent that from happening, arguing they “are obviously responsible for what their member parties are doing” and arguing they “will have a very significant problem of credibility, shall they continue to be silent about their Romanian members partner cooperating closely with the far right.”

“As long as the European socialists are not acting to prevent this in a very credible way from happening, we cannot exclude socialists in other countries going this way, unfortunately, as well,” he added.

Grindeanu, however, has suggested that his PSD could be convinced to enter discussions with Mureșan if he agrees to include ten policy proposals identified as core for the PSD. Among them are a new push for energy infrastructure, a defense and national security uplift, public services reform and investment in education and healthcare.

However, if the proposed cabinet and policy program is rejected, President Nicușor Dan will gain the constitutional power to order new elections — the first since 2024, when the AUR made major gains and became the second-largest party in parliament. Mureșan acknowledged that the far-right faction is now polling at around 35 percent, compared to just 21 percent for his own center-right PNL.

“Early elections are not my preferred option,” said Mureșan. “I believe that we should try to form a pro-European government now. But should this not be possible, I think they should not be ruled out.”

The request from Dan, who last year beat the AUR’s controversial candidate George Simion in the race for the presidency, comes at an awkward time for Mureșan. Currently serving as a member of the European Parliament, he is one of the chief negotiators on the EU’s €2 trillion long-term budget, which the bloc’s leaders want to see finalized by the end of the year.

According to him, though, the far right taking control of Romania would make that job far harder because “any anti-European government around the table would want Europe to be weaker. They know that the budget is an important tool to keep Europe strong, and they would basically vote against an ambitious and realistic [budget].”

On top of that, “we would have a government which would be very friendly to Russia, and all of this would be bad for the people of Romania, for the European Union.”

Tim Ross and Max Griera contributed reporting.

Fonte: POLITICOPolitics » POLITICO