ROMANIAN WILD CARD GEORGE SIMION SETS BRUSSELS’ NERVES ON EDGE The presidential front-runner’s hostility to Ukraine is creating a rift with fellow European conservatives. By MAX GRIERA, NICHOLAS VINOCUR and CSONGOR KÖRÖMI Illustration by Aistė Stancikaitė for POLITICO Is Europe about to have another clamorous disruptor at the leaders’ top table? That’s certainly the fear in Brussels, as the hard-right ultranationalist George Simion stands a strong chance of winning the Romanian presidency on Sunday. European officials are particularly worried the 38-year-old firebrand will join the current duo of wreckers — Hungary’s Viktor Orbán and Slovakia’s Robert Fico — in seeking to scupper aid to Ukraine just as the EU wants to dial up pressure on Russia to end the war. Advertisement If Bucharest does lurch over to the saboteur camp, it would be a bitter blow as Romania carries greater geostrategic heft than Hungary or Slovakia. The Black Sea nation of 19 million has, until now, been a rock-solid stalwart of the EU and the NATO alliance. Simion is rapidly trying to allay those fears that he will rock the boat. He insists he will be a pro-EU and pro-NATO leader, who is more directly aligned with Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni — a pro-Ukraine right-winger — than Orbán or Fico. He styles his alliance with Donald Trump’s MAGA movement as a way to keep U.S. troops committed to Romania. “We are a Eurorealist group, not Euroskeptic,” Simion told POLITICO, adding that he embraced the EU’s single market as a driver of wealth for Romanians. It is, admittedly, hard to imagine Simion as a natural bedfellow for Orbán, the EU’s most tenacious internal rebel. While Simion acknowledges Orbán has served as a “model” for him, there is little love lost between the Romanian and Hungarian nationalist camps, who are fiercely at odds over the Hungarian minority in Transylvania in northern Romania. George Simion campaigns ahead of the European elections in Targoviste last year. | Daniel Mihailescu/AFP via Getty Images But those tensions with Orbán don’t mean everyone is breathing a sigh of relief in Brussels. Officials and experts who have observed Simion’s rise to prominence — and tracked his sometimes contradictory statements — are skeptical he can be as successful as Meloni in hitching his right-wing agenda to the EU mainstream. They point to his calls to break EU law, his territorial claims on Moldova, an EU candidate nation facing Russian destabilization, as well as his blanket opposition to any further support for Ukraine as proof that Simion will be, at best, an unpredictable leader and, at worst, a source of division within the bloc. “I think he would certainly be a disruptive figure around the EU Council table and potentially also around the NATO table,” said Oana Lungescu, a former spokesperson for NATO and currently a distinguished fellow at the Royal United Services Institute. “His position seems very clear that in terms of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, he proposes neutrality for Romania — which is of course incompatible with Romania’s position both as an EU member state and as a NATO ally.” Advertisement Simion adamantly denies he is pro-Russian, but he is a banned “persona non grata“ in Ukraine for promoting a “unionist ideology that denies the legitimacy of the state border of Ukraine.” Simion’s party, the Alliance for the Union of Romanians, is associated with an irredentist vision of a greater Romania that risks triggering territorial disputes and potential conflict with Ukraine, Moldova and Bulgaria. At the helm in Bucharest, he would have ample opportunity to stir up trouble by pulling out of NATO training operations for Ukrainians, obstructing border crossings and the flow of arms into Ukraine, and rowing back on Romania’s pivotal role in helping Black Sea grain exports. For his part, Simion insists he is pressuring Kyiv to defend the rights of Romanian-speakers inside Ukraine — a subject that the government of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has, in reality, been very willing to address. Manfred Weber, head of the center-right umbrella European People’s Party, whose Romanian affiliate opposes Simion, echoed Lungescu’s concerns and said Simion represented a “risk for what I believe in.” Rather than Orbán, Simion routinely cites Meloni as his main source of inspiration. | Grigore Popescu/Agerpres Foto The EPP leader dismissed any comparison between Simion and Meloni, who remains in the European mainstream despite her hard-right policies at home, arguing the Romanian was “definitely” not like the Italian. Weber also accused Simion of having “worked together with the Russian [security services].” Simion denies allegations he met with Russian spies in Ukraine over a decade ago. Such concerns don’t seem to have dissuaded Romanian voters, who gave Simion 41 percent of the vote in the first round of the presidential election. That said, the populist candidate last week floundered in his debate against centrist rival Nicușor Dan, and opinion polls suggest his lead is beginning to ebb. POLITICO’s Poll of Polls put him only 3 percentage points clear of Dan as the race heads into the final straight. TRANSYLVANIAN TENSIONS On the face of it, Simion and Europe’s disruptor-in-chief, Orbán, look to be cut from the same political cloth. Both are ultranationalists who tout a pro-family, Christian vision for their countries. Both hail from Eastern bloc countries, have compared the EU with the USSR and both venerate Donald Trump’s MAGA movement.  But there’s a clear limit to how close they can get. Simion and Orbán have been at odds for years over Orbán’s claims that Hungarian minorities in Romania are being mistreated. Members of Simion’s AUR party suspect Orbán blocked its bid to join the European Conservatives and Reformists grouping. Indeed, they were only accepted within the bloc’s premier right-wing alliance after the Hungarian leader’s Fidesz party bailed to found the far-right Patriots group. Advertisement AUR — and particularly Simion — gained notoriety in 2019 during heated disputes over military graves in the village of Valea Uzului in Romania, where many Hungarian soldiers are buried. “Hungarians were beaten, and graves were desecrated … Since then, they have been attacking our people, our region, and our schools on a weekly basis,” Botond Csoma, spokesperson and parliamentary group leader of Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania, told POLITICO.  Orbán relies on support from the Hungarian minority in Romania, to whom his government granted citizenship. They accounted for more than 250,000 votes in the last general election in Hungary and are seen as a bastion of support for the strongman. He will need their backing to take on his rival, Péter Magyar, whose Tisza party is polling ahead of him in the run-up to next year’s parliamentary elections.  Despite those underlying tensions, Simion is keen to extend an olive branch to Orbán and forge an alliance in Brussels. Simion shakes hands with former presidential candidate Călin Georgescu during an anti-government rally. | Andrei Pungovschi/Getty Images “The relation with Mr. Orbán at the moment doesn’t exist, but as previously stated, to some extent, Viktor Orbán is a model for me and in many issues, I will collaborate with him,” Simion told POLITICO.  Last week, Orbán spoke out about the Romanian elections for the first time, saying that “one of the candidates, Mr. Simion, said … that both Hungary and Romania should be able to rely on each other … We fully agree.” Simion thanked Orbán for his support after the statement — but that caused disarray in the Hungarian minority party. To ease the turmoil, Orbán backtracked slightly a day later and stated that he fully aligned with the Hungarian minority party’s opinion. MELONI MAN Rather than Orbán, Simion routinely cites Meloni as his main source of inspiration. The Italian prime minister occupies a political zone between the far-right camps and the EU’s center-right mainstream, and is accepted as a partner by both Weber’s EPP and Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.   For Brussels, however, Simion is no Meloni. The populist’s hostile relationship with Ukraine is a major problem, and was considered another impediment to the group’s adhesion to the ECR family in the past. To gain admission to the party, the ECR obliged AUR to sign a written declaration, seen by POLITICO, condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and vaguely committing to preserving the rule of law. Advertisement Since then, Simion has claimed to be a staunch critic of the Kremlin and recently said Putin should be arrested for war crimes in Ukraine. But he has declined to commit to military aid to Ukraine and has doubled down on his promise to oppose those measures within the European Council.  It remains to be seen whether Meloni and the ECR can ultimately make the populist palatable in Brussels. “I will be open to collaborate,” Simion said. “Of course, I will be the new kid on the block, so I will have to learn a lot from Madame Meloni and other experienced leaders.” Simion told POLITICO he also looked up to other conservative politicians like the Flemish nationalist Prime Minister of Belgium Bart De Wever and Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala. SHAPE-SHIFTER Romanian experts, with a longer memory, have a message: Do not trust what Simion or his party program says. This is, after all, a man who has moved from comparing the EU to the Soviet Union, and has then claimed not to be Euroskeptic. “Don’t take anything from whatever they wrote in that program,” said Expert Forum’s Ana Otilia Nuţu, who argued Simion has learned from Trump’s campaign. She said that, just like Trump, Simion was “creating a cult” around himself. “People are going to vote for you even if you lie to them in the face,” she said. Simion is now moderating his speech to reach a wider audience, Nuţu said, but warned that “he is going to act like Orbán in favor of Putin” if he gets elected.  Simion speaks against the court’s decision to annul the first round of the presidential elections. | Robert Ghement/EFE via EPA Romanian political expert Radu Magdin also said Simion was unreliable and was overpromising to win the election, but reckoned that economic constraints would ultimately force him to fall into step. Romania receives highly significant EU funds in sectors ranging from farming to digitalization, and Simion won’t want Bucharest to suffer Hungary’s fate and have its funding cut. “The political legitimacy here is stronger with Simion, but the economic leverage is stronger with von der Leyen because, you know, you campaign in poetry and you govern in prose,” he said, citing the economic fragility of Romania over deficit levels. “This is an element of weakness that any Romanian leader has in their relationship with Brussels.” “The pressure to normalize on any Romanian president … is huge and is driven simply by economic considerations,” Magdin added. Claudiu Năsui, former Romanian economy minister, and a current member of parliament with the liberal Save Romania Union party, was even less equivocal and predicted Simion’s victory would be an “absolute disaster.” Advertisement “What’s going to happen with the Simion presidency is that people will expect a lot more uncertainty of Romania and a lot of more problems, so they’re going to withdraw funds,” he predicted. “So at best, we should expect a Meloni or PiS-style president,” he said, referring to Poland’s nationalist, socially conservative Law and Justice party. “That will be the absolute best-case scenario. I think it’s not going to be the best-case scenario, I think it’s going to be worse than Viktor Orbán if he gets elected.” Seb Starcevic contributed to this report.

Listen on * Spotify * Apple Music * Amazon Music Europe’s political center is wobbling. Again. In Germany, a dramatic Bundestag vote leaves new Chancellor Friedrich Merz bruised before he’s even begun. In Romania, the first round of the presidential election wipes out the mainstream — and puts a Trump-admiring provocateur on top. EU Confidential breaks down a week of shaken coalitions, rising populists, and what they all say about the shifting balance of power in Europe. Host Sarah Wheaton is joined by Politico’s Nette Nöstlinger in Berlin, our in-house Romanian expert Carmen Paun, and Chief Political Correspondent in Europe and the U.K. Tim Ross to explore what’s driving the backlash against the mainstream — and how Trump’s influence plays out very differently across the map.

Romanian presidential front-runner George Simion said he would not be in favor of sending more military gear to Ukraine but will follow any decisions made by U.S. President Donald Trump. Simion told POLITICO that he would not vote personally to send “military aid to Ukraine because I will consult in defense matters with the American side,” as Kyiv resists Russia’s ongoing full-scale invasion. The hard-right leader of the Alliance for the Union of Romanians is on track to win the Romanian presidency, after snagging 40 percent of the vote in last Sunday’s first round, which would tilt the country sharply to the right and away from the EU mainstream. While Simion condemns Russia’s aggression, he is highly critical of Ukraine. “We have our own problems with Ukrainians because they are behaving like Russians in many ways,” Simion said, claiming that Ukraine is not respecting the rights of the country’s Romanian minority to access schools or churches. “So, the first thing I must do is solve these problems with the Ukrainian side because we as Romanians contributed a lot in the war effort,” he said. The position of Romania’s minority in Ukraine has been a long-standing bone of contention between the countries. After pressure from international organizations, Ukraine implemented a law to protect minority rights at the end of 2023, with the European Commission issuing a favorable report on it in 2024. Simion was banned in 2024 from entering Ukraine for three years for what Kyiv called “systematic anti-Ukrainian activities.”  Simion added that if he wins the top job in the second round on May 18 and makes it to the European Council table in Brussels, he would push other EU leaders to be guided by Trump’s White House on defense policy. “I will take the same stances and will support whatever the Trump administration will do because they are the leaders of NATO and, from the security and defense point of view, the Americans didn’t disappoint us,” Simion said, adding he opposes a European army “led by the French.” Simion — who touted himself as being “almost perfectly aligned ideologically with the MAGA movement” before the election’s first round — has boosted his standing with Republicans in Trump’s orbit, even attending the U.S. president’s inauguration in Washington in January. Earlier this week, after winning the election’s first round, he met the chairman of the Conservative Political Action Conference, an annual Republican bash that brings together MAGA and other American right-wing figures.

STRASBOURG — Europe’s socialists are coming under fire for not backing Romania’s centrist candidate in the presidential election — even with the far right on track to take power in Bucharest. The Romanian Social Democratic Party (PSD) announced after the first round of the election it would not endorse centrist presidential candidate Nicușor Dan against far-right leader George Simion in the May 18 runoff, triggering a wave of criticism from mainstream lawmakers. “I expect a clear commitment from socialist leaders, including in the European Parliament, to back him,” said the center-right European People’s Party leader, Manfred Weber, adding that the withholding of support is “unacceptable.” The Romanian party in the EPP, the National Liberals, has endorsed Dan, who is the mayor of Bucharest. Socialists at the European level have spearheaded a campaign to keep far-right parties out of decision-making in Brussels’ institutions, routinely blaming the conservative EPP and Weber for voting alongside those parties on topics such as green policy and migration. Now, their Romanian colleagues are putting the group’s credibility in doubt. The leader of the Socialists and Democrats (S&D) group in the Parliament, Iratxe García, “cannot remain silent,” Weber said. “In the face of rising extremism across Europe, there is no room for political games.” Simion, the hard-right leader of the Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR), is on track to win the Romanian presidency on May 18 after pulling in a whopping 40 percent of the vote in last Sunday’s first round. That result would place another Euroskeptic and Ukraine critic at the European Council leaders’ table, at a point when the European mainstream center is wobbling as the far right makes gains around the continent. “S&D cannot keep silent about this anymore,” said Romanian MEP Dan Barna, from the centrist Renew Europe group that has also officially backed Dan. “Not endorsing Nicușor Dan is a shameful decision that goes against everything the S&D stands for in the European Parliament.” Asked whether she would support Dan, García said: “We are aware that we are in [a] delicate situation in Romania. We are working together with PES [Party of European Socialists] and our Romanian colleagues.” Some of García’s Romanian colleagues within the S&D have broken with their national party line back home and are criticizing the decision, such as Parliament Vice President Victor Negrescu.  “For me, these elections go beyond the names of the candidates, it is about the choice you make for Romania and which side of history you want to be on,” he told POLITICO.

Romanian Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu said Monday he would resign, throwing the country into further turmoil after a hard-right candidate easily won the first round of the country’s presidential election. An interim prime minister will be appointed Tuesday morning, local media reported, citing Romania’s presidential administration. Ciolacu has been prime minister since 2023, leading the ruling center-left Social Democratic Party (PSD). PSD’s candidate for president, Crin Antonescu, came third in Sunday’s closely watched election. The second round on May 18 will pit hard-right leader George Simion against independent Bucharest Mayor Nicușor Dan, sidelining Romania’s establishment parties entirely. Ciolacu himself ran for president in last year’s annulled election. His campaign was criticized for his use of luxury planes, and he placed third, with less than a fifth of the vote. He offered his resignation then but ultimately remained in his post. In an interview with POLITICO before the election, Simion predicted that the prime minister would have to go if the establishment parties flopped again — and he has touted Călin Georgescu, the disqualified winner of last November’s cancelled election, for the role. This story is being updated.  

Romanians living abroad are poised to help usher the far right into power back home. Nationalist firebrand George Simion stormed to first place in Sunday’s presidential vote, taking about 40 percent of the overall vote and securing his place in the runoff. But his margin of victory among the diaspora was even wider, scoring the backing of more than 60 percent of Romanians abroad. The runner-up, centrist Bucharest Mayor Nicușor Dan, netted just 25 percent of the expat vote. A potent cocktail of ultranationalist rhetoric, anti-establishment messaging and relentless TikTok campaigning helped Simion clean up abroad. And with less than two weeks before the second round of the election, that could propel him to the presidency. “I don’t know if those in the diaspora understand that through their vote they can destroy this country,” renowned Romanian economist Cristian Păun warned local media Monday. ‘SAVIOR, LEADER, MESSIAH’ About four million Romanians live and work abroad, seeking better economic and educational opportunities outside the Eastern European country of 19 million people. Italy, Spain and Germany are home to the biggest numbers of Romanian expats. In all three countries, voters backed Simion in droves, with more than 70 percent of votes cast going to the hard-right leader. Many are involved in blue-collar, often low-paid work and have found a political home in the policies and rhetoric of Simion, a staunchly anti-establishment rabble-rouser who has blamed many of the country’s woes on its stagnant political class. “Usually the ones in Spain, Italy, most of them are seasonal workers, so the ones who left the country because of what they consider to be very low socioeconomic conditions for them,” said Oana-Valentina Suciu, an assistant professor of political science at the University of Bucharest. Although Romania’s economy has rallied significantly in the decades since it emerged from Nicolae Ceaușescu’s communist dictatorship, the country is still dogged by corruption and lower living standards than wealthier western and northern Europe. “Simion was the only one who literally visited poor areas in Romania and Romanian communities in the diaspora, so he was the one who apparently paid attention to them — even if actually the solutions that he proposes are completely unrealistic,” Suciu said. Simion — who supports U.S. President Donald Trump’s MAGA agenda — wants to unify Romania and Moldova, has called to terminate allied military aid to Ukraine and pledged he will break EU law if he disagrees with diktats from Brussels. Romanians living abroad are poised to help usher the far right into power back home. | Robert Ghement/EPA “What he proposes to them seems like a very easy solution for their problems,” Suciu said. “That’s why they go for a sort of savior, leader, messiah.” For other voters, she said, supporting Simion was less about his actual policies and more to do with opposing the establishment. “They [Romanian expats] always go against the system, irrespective of who the candidates are,” she said. “Usually they go for what they consider to be an outsider.” When Simion faces off against opponent Nicușor Dan in two weeks’ time, it will be the first time a candidate from one of the mainstream parties — the social democrats or national liberals — did not make it to the runoff. “The vote is a clear rejection of the ruling coalition. Both Simion and Dan are seen as ‘anti-system,’ even though they are diametrically opposed politically,” said Oana Lungescu, former chief spokesperson for NATO. “Romanians will face a stark choice on May 18, between an ultranationalist and a pro-Western candidate.” THE TIKTOK FACTOR Romania’s election last November was annulled after the authorities uncovered a Russia-style influence operation on social media, specifically TikTok, in favor of ultranationalist Călin Georgescu. And it appears social media could ultimately play an outsized role in this election too. Simion has used social media to great effect to reach Romanians abroad, with 1.4 million followers on TikTok. As of Monday, his videos have been liked 30 million times. “He [Simion] is highly active on the social platforms, especially the ones such as Instagram and TikTok that do not need too much attention, you just scroll and see images and messages,” Suciu said. Vlad, a Romanian expat living in Belgium who preferred not to use his surname, said Simion’s victory “would’ve been impossible without TikTok.” “He is a TikTok product and launched his whole movement on the back of Covid disinformation, among other things,” he said. Simion’s AUR party fanned conspiracies during the Covid-19 pandemic, opposing government measures to limit the spread of the virus and spreading falsehoods about vaccines to ride a wave of anti-science sentiment. “Because of TikTok basically, he kind of exploded during the pandemic … he does lives on TikTok all the time, he films himself every-fucking-where, so he kind of gives off this really kind of genuine persona that he built,” Vlad said. Romania’s election last November was annulled after the authorities uncovered a Russia-style influence operation on social media, specifically TikTok, in favor of ultranationalist Călin Georgescu. | Robert Ghement/EPA Most Romanians living in the diaspora were not well-educated, he added, and susceptible to Simion’s populist rhetoric and social media outreach. “The vast majority of them, it’s actually people who don’t have such a high level of education, [and] work in really tough, menial jobs … we’re talking about truck drivers, we’re talking about construction workers, people who look after the elderly,” he said. “They were always kind of living in their bubbles in their communities, sending all their money they were making back home and … living fairly lonely lives,” he added. Simion bypassed traditional media to speak directly to those disenchanted diaspora voters, promising to hear their concerns — and they returned the favor on Sunday, helping to elevate him to first place, and potentially all the way to the presidency.

CENTRIST NICUȘOR DAN FACES UPHILL BATTLE TO BEAT SIMION IN ROMANIAN PRESIDENTIAL RUNOFF Centrist mayor of Bucharest has to bridge a daunting deficit with hard-right leader. By HANNE COKELAERE The numbers whizz is Nicușor Dan who goes into the May 18 second round of the presidential election as the underdog against a self-declared “Trumpist” who wants to cut military aid to Ukraine. | Bogdan Cristel/EPA The only thing standing between hard-right nationalist George Simion and the Romanian presidency is a mathematician who can see the odds aren’t great. The numbers whizz is Nicușor Dan, now the independent centrist mayor of Bucharest, who goes into the May 18 second round of the presidential election as the underdog against a self-declared “Trumpist” who wants to cut military aid to Ukraine. Simion, from the Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR), secured a comfortable win in the first round, bagging a provisional 41 percent of the vote. The electoral map shows him coming first in an astonishing geographical sweep across Romania. He also secured the support of a whopping 61 percent of people voting abroad. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- While Simion was propelled to victory by long-standing frustration with the corruption and ineffectiveness of the old-order parties — the Social Democratic Party (PSD) and National Liberal Party (PNL) — the m ore urbanite Dan managed to score wins largely in big cities such as Bucharest, Brașov and Cluj, where he has more appeal. Ultimately, Dan only squeaked into the second round, scoring 21 percent, edging out Crin Antonescu, the candidate from the governing coalition, which includes the PSD and PNL, who scored 20 percent. The campaign ahead of the second round will, to some extent, reset the clock, as candidates attempt to poach support from other first-round candidates’ voters. Dan is already signaling that he will use the next two weeks to cast himself as the sole alternative to a hard-right leader who could destabilize an EU and NATO country of 19 million people. Turnout in the first round was 53 percent. Dan said on Monday the runoff vote will give voting Romanians the choice “between a democratic, stable and respected Romania in Europe — and a dangerous path of isolation, populism and defiance of the rule of law.” He asked for the support of “all those who believe in the law, in truth, in education, in a modern economy, in strong partnerships with the free world.” But the first round shows that he has a lot of ground to claw back. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Simion styled himself as the successor of ultranationalist firebrand Călin Georgescu, whose shock victory in November led the election to be annulled over allegations of illegal campaigning and potential Russian interference. Sunday’s first round showed that strategy was successful. Simion outperformed Georgescu’s November result; he even did better than Georgescu’s November vote share and his own taken together. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- That leaves Dan with a mountain to climb. Analysts have previously pointed out that Dan’s support is largely concentrated among well-educated and well-off people in larger cities. Sunday’s election results showed that’s still the case. His biggest challenge is that many of the more traditional voters who supported Antonescu in the first round could gravitate to Simion rather than him. Speaking before the vote, MEP Siegfried Mureșan from PNL had predicted that Antonescu voters were less likely to switch behind Dan in a second round than the other way round. “Some of these voters are liberal, some are conservative, some very conservative — and some, particularly the voters of the socialist party, are partly also elderly, less educated, partly also from the rural areas,” he said of the Antonescu voters that Dan now needs. Beating Simion will require the independent Dan, who founded the centrist Save Romania Union (USR), not only to win round regular PNL and PSD supporters, but also those who voted for the leftist-turned-nationalist former Prime Minister Victor Ponta. Dan will also have to rebuild bridges with the supporters of the centrist reformist Elena Lasconi, who campaigned hard against Dan after USR party leaders abandoned her in favor of him. She resigned as USR president on Monday. Establishment candidate Antonescu also conspicuously failed to clearly call upon his supporters to rally behind Dan. Instead, he only told his voters to “consider for themselves which of the candidates the ideas I presented are compatible with” when he admitted defeat Sunday night. By contrast, Hunor Kelemen, chairman of the Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania, part of the governing coalition, said his party would support Dan over the Romanian nationalist. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Then Dan has the problems of the diaspora. Of the 9.4 million voters in Sunday’s first round, nearly 1 million voted abroad. Simion won 61 percent of the votes abroad, while Dan came second with 25.4 percent. The bulk of Simion’s foreign support came from northern and western Europe, where a majority of diaspora voters supported the far-right leader. Dan came out on top in most non-European countries, including the U.S. and Canada. Crucially, just 14 percent of diaspora voters didn’t support either of the runoff candidates in the first round. That means there just isn’t a big pool of voters abroad for him to play for. Dan has to win the home crowd. Carmen Paun contributed reporting.

Top right-wing officials across Europe hailed George Simion’s victory in the first round of Romania’s presidential re-run on Sunday as a major boost for nationalist and euroskeptic forces within the EU. “Congratulations to George Simion, Vice President of ECR Party, on the excellent result in the first round of the presidential elections! Wishing you the best of luck in the second round!” said Mateusz Morawiecki, former Polish prime minister and current president of the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) group in the European Parliament. A vocal admirer of U.S. President Donald Trump, Simion has embraced a nationalist, anti-establishment agenda that mirrors MAGA-style rhetoric. His victory on Sunday raises the prospect of Romania aligning with anti-Ukraine voices at the EU leaders’ table, alongside Hungary and Slovakia. “In Romania the people finally voted, freely, with their heads and hearts. With all due respect to the ‘gentlemen’ of Brussels and their dirty tricks. Bravo George Simion!” said Italy’s Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini, leader of the far-right League party. “Congratulations to our ally George Simion who came out on top in the first round of the presidential election in Romania this evening, with more than 30 percent of the vote,” said Marion Maréchal, a senior official in France’s far-right Reconquête! party, as initial results were announced Sunday evening. Simion, founder of the hard-right Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR), won more than 40 percent of the vote Sunday, defeating his rivals by a wide margin. Centrist Bucharest Mayor Nicușor Dan came in second with just under 21 percent, narrowly edging out establishment candidate Crin Antonescu, who secured 20 percent. Simion and Dan are set to face off in a runoff election on May 18.

Romanians cast their votes on Sunday in a closely watched presidential election, with partial results showing hard-right candidate George Simion taking a clear lead. While the official count is still underway, early indications put Simion — long tipped as the front-runner — in first place, albeit short of the 50 percent needed to win outright. That means he will face his second-place opponent, likely to be either establishment candidate Crin Antonescu or centrist Bucharest mayor Nicușor Dan, in a runoff on May 18. So who is the 38-year-old firebrand leader of the Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR) — and how did he get so close to the presidency? TRUMP FANBOY Simion studied history at university and quickly got involved in activism, taking part in street protests promoting the unification of Romania and neighboring Moldova, an ultranationalist, irredentist ideology. He founded his AUR party in 2019 after a failed bid for election to the European Parliament as an independent. Simion, who proudly wears flaming red Donald Trump baseball caps, has described the party’s style as “Trumpist.” After last year’s parliamentary election, it holds the second-largest number of seats in the Romanian parliament. Many of AUR’s policy positions match those of Trump’s MAGA movement, from social conservatism — it bills itself as pro-Christian and pro-family — to stopping military aid to Ukraine. The party’s support surged amid the Covid-19 pandemic, with AUR tapping into anti-science sentiment by opposing government measures to limit the spread of the virus and fanning conspiracies about vaccines on social media. Simion was banned in 2024 from entering Ukraine for three years for what Kyiv called “systematic anti-Ukrainian activities.” He denies he is against Ukraine or pro-Russian, arguing that he is simply pro-Romanian. He has also been repeatedly banned from Moldova, with Chișinău accusing him of endangering national security. Simion has taken aim at Brussels, threatening to break EU laws he disagrees with, though he has stressed Romania should remain part of the bloc. He told POLITICO last month he rejects the far-right label. MELONI 2.0 Simion has cited right-wing Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni as a political hero and called for the “Melonization” of Europe. George Simion founded his AUR party in 2019 after a failed bid for election to the European Parliament as an independent. | Robert Ghement/EPA “Believe me, there will be a Simionization as well,” he told POLITICO last November, shortly before Romania’s annulled presidential election, in which he placed fourth. In the months since that election result was scrapped — far-right shock winner Călin Georgescu was disqualified and a new vote ordered by the country’s constitutional court after the Romanian authorities alleged Russian interference propelled him to victory — Simion’s profile has soared. Vigorously denouncing the cancelation of last year’s election, he has framed the do-over as a battle for “democracy, the people’s will, the rule of law and the constitutional order,” and vowed to appoint Georgescu to a top role if he is elected. At a televised debate between presidential candidates last month, he showed up with a bouquet of flowers for Elena Lasconi, the center-left candidate who came second at last year’s annulled vote, before walking out in protest over the canceled election. The theatrical stunt epitomizes the disruptive politics of Simion, who began his political career marching in the streets and spray-painting ultranationalist slogans on roads across the country. Sunday’s election result is the culmination of his rise from fringe agitator to far-right chief — and potentially, should he make it to Cotroceni Palace, the presidential residence in Bucharest, the most powerful man in Romania. Carmen Paun contributed to this report.

BUCHAREST — George Simion, the hard-right leader of the Alliance for the Union of Romanians, is projected to win the first round of Romania’s presidential election, with more than 30 percent of the vote, according to three exit polls. It was not immediately clear which candidate would place second, with establishment figurehead Crin Antonescu and centrist Bucharest Mayor Nicușor Dan battling to face Simion in the runoff. Former Prime Minister Victor Ponta is set to finish in fourth place, the exit polls say. The exit poll projections are not official results, which are expected to start coming in from Romania’s election authority in the next few hours. The exit polls also do not reflect votes cast by the Romanian diaspora abroad. The election results are being closely watched in Brussels and Washington, as Romania has become the latest battleground between the hard right and political establishment. Simion has unapologetically badged himself as a supporter of U.S. President Donald Trump’s “Make America Great Again” movement. Sunday’s vote was part of the election do-over that Romania’s top court ordered in December, after canceling the November ballot over allegations of illegal campaigning and potential Russian interference in favor of Călin Georgescu, an ultranationalist firebrand who came out of nowhere to win the first round. This story is being updated.