Romania’s presidential election delivered yet another boost for Europe’s populist right. George Simion, leader of the Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR), came first, receiving a stunning 40 percent of the total vote. 

He defeated his rivals by a wide margin. Centrist Bucharest Mayor Nicusor Dan came in second with just under 21 percent, narrowly edging out establishment candidate Crin Antonescu, who secured 20 percent.

With no candidate surpassing the 50 percent threshold, a second round is inevitable in the fourth biggest population in Eastern Europe. Simion and Dan are set to face off in a runoff election on May 18.

After Sunday’s vote, George Simion, 38, a nationalist candidate and admirer of Donald Trump, thanked supporters in a recorded message, calling their votes “an act of courage, trust and solidarity.” On Friday, he posted on X that the election was not about individual candidates but about “every Romanian who has been lied to, ignored, humiliated, and still has the strength to believe and defend our identity and rights.”

Simion’s platform is an uncomfortable prospect for Brussels. He questions the legitimacy of central EU policies, from the Green Deal to military aid for Ukraine. If Romania, which borders Ukraine, elects a president openly sceptical of EU orthodoxy, that might signal a deepening resistance within the union. The Romanian presidency has semi-executive powers, including commanding armed forces and appointing the prime minister and top judges.

Hungary has repeatedly elected Victor Orban, who regularly criticises EU policies, and Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico, who was elected in 2023, has close ties with Moscow defying EU pressure on several grounds. 

Yet some observers remain cautious about drawing premature comparisons. Alexandru Niculescu, a researcher at the Free University of Brussels (ULB), is not sure Simion will act like Orban and Fico despite a growing EU concern about the approaching Romanian presidential election’s second round. 

“Orban and Fico are known figures whose behaviour within the EU is well established, whereas Simion has yet to demonstrate how he will act in practice. Many pro-EU experts tend to demonise any form of contestation towards the EU. Personally, I try to remain as cautious and nuanced as possible,” Niculescu tells TRT World.

Simion, who advocates for an EU of strong, sovereign nations, drew particularly strong backing from Romania’s diaspora, securing over 70% of the vote in countries like Italy, Spain, and Germany, where many Romanian migrants work in blue-collar jobs.

Unapologetic stance

Fresh off his first-round win, which has brought Simion close to the presidency, the right-wing candidate has been in no mood to appease Brussels with toned-down statements. He showed no such inclination and claimed voters had chosen “Romanian dignity” on 4 May.

“It is the victory of those who have not lost hope, of those who still believe in Romania, a free, respected, sovereign country,” said Simion, warning Brussels that EU’s “one-size-fits-all policies” would no longer be accepted in Bucharest.

He also suggested that some EU member states including Romania can form a populist alliance aligned with Trump’s MAGA movement, apparently referring to countries like Hungary, Slovakia and potentially others. In a recent interview, Simion called himself “a Euro-realist” who wants to see “a Europe of nations” unlike America’s melting pot model. 

The EU’s troubles are not limited to its periphery but also grounded in rising far-right movements like France’s Marine Le Pen’s Rassemblement National, which claimed a historic success in recent European Parliament elections, escalating their attacks on Brussels’s Leviathan bureaucratic order. 

Le Pen was jubilant about Simion’s first round victory calling it “a very nice boomerang” against EU elites—a reference to the annulled December election in Romania, when Calin Georgescu, a Eurosceptic, won but was later barred from running again due to alleged Russian interference.

Cancelling the election and barring Georgescu from rerun have clearly backfired as Romanians increased populist share by voting Simion, who allied with Georgescu promising to appoint him as his prime minister. Both men, along with Le Pen, blame Brussels for manipulation of the vote behind-the scene.

Is Euroscepticism infecting Brussels?

Next week, Poland—another eastern European state that neighbours Ukraine—will also hold a critical presidential election. There, too, populist politicians are turning their fire on the EU, inspired by Simion’s success.

Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the country’s main conservative opposition party Law and Justice (PiS) leader, already expressed concern that the EU is “preparing to repeat what happened in Romania” if a populist candidate wins the Polish presidential election, implying a risk of electoral annulment.

Mateusz Morawiecki, a former Polish prime minister and a member of the PiS, who now leads the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) platform, a far-right group in the European Parliament, congratulated Simion for his victory calling it “the excellent result”. 

Yet not all outside observers see this as an indictment of Brussels. Matthew Bryza, former US ambassador to Azerbaijan, sees Romania’s situation as more a matter of democratic backsliding than EU overreach.

“The EU is an overwhelmingly democratic organisation and what's been happening in Romania is democratic in form in terms of there being an election, but not democratic in result, given that the person who won is not a strong supporter of continuing and strengthening Romanian democratic institutions,” Bryza tells TRT World. 

But while Bryza does not consider Simion’s first round victory as a slap in the face of the EU, he concedes that Brussels is “quite concerned” about the Romanian hardliner’s possible presidency. “Of course, the EU will not welcome” Simion’s presidency in Romania or similar leadership in any other member states, he adds. 

‘Slap in the face of the establishment?’

Niculescu, the Brussels-based researcher, believes Simion’s first round victory is “a clear slap in the face of Romania’s political establishment”, which is largely pro-EU, leading to the resignation of Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu, the leader of the Social Democratic Party (PSD). 

Ciolacu announced that his party would support neither candidate in the second round, which may help Simion. However, the minority government’s two other partners, the Liberals (PNL) and the Hungarian minority party (UDMR), have decided to endorse Dan, the pro-EU candidate. 

Although the vote revealed a sharp rejection of Romania’s EU-aligned elite, Niculescu warns against overstating the case. “Most Romanians remain pro-European and recognise how much the country has developed since joining the Union,” he says.

“Romanian voters generally blame the current government and the traditional parties and not the EU for the country’s challenges. While Simion is a nationalist and conservative, he is unlikely to question Romania’s membership in the EU. However, he will likely challenge specific EU policies—such as the Green Deal—which he argues are disadvantageous for Romania.”

Ecaterina Matoi, a scholar at the Middle East Political and Economic Institute (MEPEI) in Bucharest, shares a similar view. “Whichever candidate may win the 2025 Romanian presidential elections, the intra-European political dialogue will continue to thrive,” she says.

Will Simion win?

Polls suggest Simion leads going into the second round, and analysts consider him the favourite.

“Simion clearly has the most energised political movement behind him or had had at least until last weekend and so he's obviously a favourite,” says Bryza. But he also sees a possibility that “the more mainstream or pro-EU political forces of Romania will now not only come together but be really energised and allow for the defeat of Simion.” 

While some analysts suggest a “pro-Western” vote could rally behind Dan, as happened in the 2004 and 2014 elections, this comparison has its own limits, according to Niculescu. “In 2004 and 2014, the diaspora overwhelmingly supported candidates seen as pro-West. Today, that same diaspora largely backs Simion,” he says.  

“This is a difficult assessment,” Matoi tells TRT World, referring to the second-round result. “It depends very much on the arrangements between parties and candidates involved in the first round, and on the ability to regroup voters: it is a new competition,” she says. 

But “the chances to cancel this first round are minimal,” she says, alluding to the fact that the December vote was annulled by a controversial top court decision. Likewise, she sees attempts to exert pressure on Simion by the establishment or its allies are unlikely to succeed at this stage.

Niculescu highlights another key factor and variable: Victor Ponta, a former prime minister, a sovereignist candidate and once a PSD leader, who finished fourth in the first round with 13% of the vote. Ponta denounced the annulment of the 2024 election and has drifted rightward in recent years.

If Ponta supports Simion, his 13 percent vote share in the first round would hand the right-wing candidate a comfortable win in the second round. However, Ponta’s new political platform is “ambiguous on which candidate it will support”, making any prediction so difficult, says Niculescu. 

If turnout rises significantly, it could reduce Simion’s chances, reflecting a mobilisation by those who view him as “an anti-Western far-right candidate,” according to Niculescu. “Ultimately, Romania is at a crossroads. The country’s future leadership is genuinely uncertain and unpredictable.”