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The vote in Romania and fears for the future of the European Union

The possible confirmation of Simion's victory in the second round on Sunday 18 May is worrying for the functioning of the EU itself. The possible illiberal drift of another member state would also end up undermining the single market that is based on respect for shared rules

by Luisa Chiodi*.

14 May 2025

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Il primo ministro rumeno, Marcel Ciolacu, parla con i giornalisti subito dopo le dimissioni, il giorno dopo che il leader dell’estrema destra all’opposizione, George Simion, ha vinto il primo turno delle elezioni presidenziali e il suo candidato è stato tagliato fuori. 5 Maggio 2025. REUTERS/Andreea Campeanu/File Photo

4' min read

Key points

Union Nationalisms and Collective Interests
The impact on enlargement
Balkans bucking the trend show the way forward

4' min read

The first round of the elections in Romania raises many important questions for the EU. Among them is that of the country's democratic hold. The positions of the ultranationalist Simion, who won 40% of the vote on 4 May, do not leave one calm. As Michaela Iordache wrote on OBCT, 'behind the adherence to populism lies an unheard demand for social justice, for fairness, for redemption'. Here, as elsewhere, citizens disillusioned with traditional political forces are relying on those who question the functioning of democracy, constitutional principles and European treaties.

The possible confirmation of Simion's victory in the second round on Sunday 18 May, however, is also worrying for the functioning of the EU itself. The possible illiberal drift of another member country would also undermine the single market that is based on respect for shared rules. In recent years, in order to respond to the challenges posed by Hungary, the EU has introduced a so-called 'Rule of Law Mechanism' essentially based on suspending transfers of EU resources to countries that, by undermining the functioning of democracy, do not ensure their proper use. The Mechanism used against Hungary, however, turned out to be rather weak: Budapest's blackmail about military support to Ukraine was enough to convince Brussels to unfreeze part of the funds. And in any case, now that the authoritarian drift of one of the founding countries can no longer be ruled out, it is clear that the Mechanism cannot work to sanction countries that pay out more resources than they receive from the EU.

Nationalisms and the Union's Collective Interests

There are many reasons to be concerned about the elections in Romania, not least those relating to peace in Europe. Our continent is littered with painful histories, bilateral conflicts that the European integration process has tried to elaborate into a common peace project. When the Central European countries started the process of European integration with the end of the Cold War, they managed to prevent aggressive nationalisms from causing tragic scenarios like those faced by Yugoslavia in the same years. Tensions between Hungary and Romania, for example, which had reached very high peaks in the 1990s, were reduced thanks to the democratic transition project required to secure EU membership.

Today we find ourselves with a presidential candidate in Romania who intends to ostracise both military and economic support for Ukraine at war.

It is clear that if each EU member puts its own interests before the collective interests of the Union, if there are no shared principles for decision-making, we remain at the mercy of the strongest in global competition. Today's geopolitical challenge between the great powers has many faces when it comes to Europe: Russian imperialist ambitions and Chinese economic interests are now joined by the new Trumpian unscrupulous policy. Everyone stands to gain from divisions in the EU.

The vision of the potential new Romanian president is the same as that of other European sovereignists, i.e. he opposes further EU integration. But it is hard to imagine that the challenges ahead can be tackled unanimously or through ad hoc coalitions for each issue that arises.

The impact on enlargement

Among other things, we risk a victorious Simion in Romania joining Orban in Hungary and Fico in Slovakia in putting a spoke in the wheels of European policy towards the current countries involved in the European enlargement process relaunched in 2022 after the extension of Russia's war in Ukraine. In the face of aggression or interference by other powers in the candidate countries for European integration, the EU countries seemed convinced that it was important for European security to extend the enlargement process to three more countries in the post-Soviet space and to relaunch the Balkans.

As we have seen over the past two years, however, the geopolitical challenge is not sufficient to bring enlargement to fruition. The EU is blocked by unanimity in foreign policy, and between diverging interests between member states and bilateral conflicts with candidate countries, no progress is being made. Since Croatia's accession in 2013, the Balkans have sunk into increasingly illiberal systems. Most recently, Hungary and Slovakia have prevented the imposition of sanctions on Georgian politicians responsible for the country's authoritarian political drift.

The Balkans bucking the trend shows the way forward

Just as in the 1990s, the Balkans are bucking the trend of the rest of the EU, but this time they are showing us the way forward: for months, a large protest movement in Serbia has been demanding the restoration of the rule of law in the country after years of authoritarian drift. A demand that should be shared by all EU member states. Yet in the geopolitical logic that marks the EU countries' short-sighted approach, they prefer to keep silent or offer support to the Serbian government. Some EU countries act to protect their economic interests, others, like Romania in the event of Simion's victory, out of political affinity with the Belgrade government.

In the current international scenario, the EU member states have to decide whether to remain faithful to the idea of constituting a democratic political space where the rule of law applies, both domestically and internationally, or to reduce themselves to irrelevance or, even worse, to remain at the mercy of the strongest. The result of the first round of the presidential elections in Romania does not bode well.

* Scientific Director Osservatorio Balcani e Caucaso Transeuropa - Trento