Europe, NATO Cancel Democracy
Can an election be canceled for fear that the winner would cancel elections? This is the political paradox at the heart of the case involving Romanian presidential candidate Calin Georgescu, who was barred from a May rerun of last year’s presidential election. The Sunday decision by the country’s Central Electoral Bureau will go down as a crucial moment in the history of both the European Union and NATO, neither of which participated in the decision directly, though the influence of both was clearly felt (see accompanying Timeline: Romania Overturns Presidential Election Result).
It’s impossible to review what’s happened in Romania and not think of the last three years of legal battles over Donald Trump’s eligibility to run for President. Romania is our might-have-been, and Europe’s successful model for lawfare. Alternatively, it’s a new form of preemptive color revolution, in which the dictator is ousted before taking office:
Many Americans came to be familiar with the Romania story after J.D. Vance’s speech in Munich on Valentine’s Day, when Vance said the following:
I was struck that a former European commissioner went on television recently and sounded delighted that the Romanian government had just annulled an entire election. He warned that if things don’t go to plan, the very same thing could happen in Germany too.
Vance was referring first of all to a December 6, 2024 decision by Romania’s Constitutional Court to annul the results of last year’s presidential election, in which the rightist Georgescu won the last round. Secondarily, he was pointing to remarks by former EU Commissioner Thierry Breton, who gave an interview to France’s BFMTV/RMC in which he said, “We did it in Romania and we will obviously have to do it if it is necessary in Germany.” Later, after Elon Musk called him a “tyrant of Europe,” Breton insisted the situation was “fake news,” adding he was merely referring to “the application of the [Digital Services Act] and its moderation obligations.”
What a former official like Breton did or did not say may not mean so much, in the scheme of things. What Romanian officials put on paper about why they made their decisions does. On October 5th, 2024, about six weeks before the first round of Romanian presidential voting, the Romanian high court removed from the ballot another nationalist-populist politician, Diana Iovanovici-Șoșoacă.
That ruling invoked multiple articles of the Romanian Constitution, saying Iovanovici-Șoșoacă’s participation would have violated “provisions related to Romania’s Euro-Atlantic integration.” The Court wrote:
Romania’s status as a Member State of the European Union and of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) equals to a guarantee of the democratic evolution of the Romanian State, on the one hand, from the point of view of its attachment to the principles of freedom, democracy and respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms and the rule of law… Therefore, any candidate aspiring to become the President of Romania is bound to promote the integrity of the democratic system… On the contrary, the lack of attachment to the constitutional values represents a behaviour that, in itself, is contrary to the Constitution.
The court went on to note Iovanovici-Șoșoacă and her husband had been “guests of honour at the Russian Embassy at a reception organized on the occasion of the National Day of the Russian Federation,” adding that she’d said, among many other things, “Romania is a dictatorship. These days, Russia is a thousand times more democratic than Romania. And China also!” The Court mentioned she’d put the EU and its Western partners in a “difficult position” by disseminating “Russian propaganda,” an example being, “Die, Europe, die…! Die together with all your demons! This is the garden of Virgin Mary and there is no passing through here!”
Iovanovici-Șoșoacă was bounced from the ballot, but Georgescu remained and unexpectedly won, aided by what was later described as a “flood” of TikTok videos supporting his campaign. The high court this time annulled the result, saying the vote was “flawed throughout its entire duration and at every stage” and marred by interference, likely Russian. A revote was scheduled for this May.
Shortly after the high court decision, the EU opened an investigation into the Romanian vote. The issue was whether or not the Romanian government did enough to prevent election “interference” as defined by Europe’s Digital Services Act, the sweeping “illegal content” law ushered in under the tenure of Breton, who once referred to himself as the “enforcer” of the “will of the people.” The DSA rules with regard to elections are the “obligations” Breton referred to in his spat with Musk. If the EU investigated and found insufficient protection against interference, this would constitute “infringements of Articles 34(1), 34(2) and 35(1)” of the DSA, which foresees penalties both for platforms and member states that defy its decrees.
One way or another, Romania was going to be in trouble if it let a Georgescu victory stand. By early January his candidacy was the subject of two investigations, one the external EU review and the other an internal Romanian criminal probe. Separately, a media case was built against him, centered around his attitude toward NATO and Russia. Georgescu in December said he’d bar military aid to Ukraine, that NATO is the “world’s weakest alliance,” and that maintenance of a NATO Aegis missile system on Romania’s territory was not among his “priorities.”
The criminal probe focused on six alleged crimes of varying degrees of specificity, including “false declarations,” “promoting… fascist, legionary, racist or xenophobic ideas, conceptions or doctrines,” and helping establish an organization of “anti-Semitic character.” Georgescu was detained and questioned on February 26th in connection with these charges.
Iovanovici-Șoșoacă was also criminally investigated while her ballot status was reviewed by the high court. The state weighed terrorism charges for “inciting the population to revolt in a manner unworthy of a candidate for the presidential office” after she reportedly blocked access to a Covid vaccination site. Significantly, Iovanovici-Șoșoacă first promoted a “natural vaccine” but later demanded the public be given access to the Sputnik V shot. She said: “Shouldn’t we get along well with all our neighbors?” and expressed disdain for a policy that instead stressed getting along with “those 12,000 kilometers away [in] Germany or France.”
Georgescu appealed to the European Court of Human Rights after his election was annulled, complaining he’d been a victim of a “formalized coup d’etat.” The Strasbourg-based ECHR shot down that appeal four days ago. Whether or not this decision affected Romania’s Central Electoral Bureau (BEC, or Biroul Electoral Central) is hard to say, but the BEC by a 10-4 vote this weekend elected to bar Georgescu, closing the book on his candidacy.
The significance of this episode can’t be overstated. Using the Digital Services Act as an enforcement mechanism, the EU is essentially mandating that member states elect politicians who support NATO. Even assuming the worst things written about Georgescu are true — that he benefitted from Russian interference, or has xenophobic or anti-Semitic tendencies — democracies still come down to who gets the most votes. If that definition comes with an “unless” clause, as in “the most votes, unless the candidate’s views conflict with NATO and EU member obligations,” European government has formally moved off any definition of democracy as Americans understand it.
Western media is obviously focused on Georgescu’s politics, with headlines like “Romania Bars Ultranationalist Candidate From Presidential Race,” “Romania Bars Far-Right Presidential Candidate, Risking Trump Ire,” and “Mercenary boss calls for Romania to ‘boil over’ after far-right front-runner blocked from race.” Only a few scattered Western observers, including a contribution from Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty writer Luke Allnutt, hinted at the larger long-term problem this episode presents.
Sixteen years after being admitted to the EU and twenty-one years after acceptance into NATO, Romania has come full circle. Is the European Union a collection of democracies that belongs to a military alliance, or a military alliance containing cosmetic democracies? It’s not hard to see that this is just the beginning of a series of fractures.