Radio România Internațional

Tag: Calin Georgescu

  • December 5, 2024 UPDATE

    December 5, 2024 UPDATE

    VOTE The Foreign Ministry in Bucharest on Thursday announced that it briefed the allied states on the attempted foreign interferences in the election campaign in Romania. ‘The Romanian Authorities are investigating this attempted initiative underway. ‘We are going to take all the measures needed to protect democracy, national security and sovereignty’, says a communiqué by the Foreign Ministry. In the meantime, the General Prosecutor’s Office was notified ex officio after checking the documents presented by the country’s Higher Defence Council regarding the campaign of independent candidate Calin Georgescu, which were declassified. An investigation is underway on various charges such as election fraud and money laundering. In another development the Constitutional Court on Thursday got four notifications calling for the cancellation of the results in the first round of the presidential election. The head of the Permanent Election Authority, Toni Grebla says the election cannot be cancelled because the terms stipulated by the law have been exceeded and the Constitutional Court has validated the results. The independent candidate Calin Georgescu will be facing the pro-European Elena Lasconi in the presidential runoff due on 8 December. Romanians abroad will have three days to cast their ballot starting this Friday.

     

    EU The European Commission has called on the TikTok platform to preserve all the information in its system linked to the EU election for thorough examination. The Commission has summoned representatives from the member states, European institutions and digital platforms to asses the risks posed by the information systems at the level of the entire bloc starting from Romania’s case. After the outcome of the first round of its presidential election, Romania had called on the European Commission to launch a formal investigation into the platform under the community rules on social media. On Tuesday in the European Parliament, the platform defended the measures it had implemented to fight misinformation in the first round of the presidential election in Romania and denied the allegation that it would have favoured the independent candidate Calin Georgescu. In another development the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken on Thursday said the Romanian authorities had revealed a large-scale and well-funded Russian effort to influence the presidential election.” Earlier, the US Department of State said in a communique that ”Romania’s hard-earned progress anchoring itself in the Transatlantic community cannot be turned back by foreign actors seeking to shift Romania’s foreign policy away from its Western alliances.”

     

    ECONOMY The analysts’ trust in the Romanian economy dropped last month amid the latest political developments. A survey among the experts forecasts a higher inflation rate in the coming year, a depreciated national currency and an economic growth lower than initially expected. The Macroeconomic Trust Indicator of CFA Romania dropped by 13.5 points down to 31.4 points, the lowest level since 2020. 77% of the pundits questioned have forecast a depreciated local currency in the following 12 months, while the rest believes it is going to stagnate. The budget deficit envisaged for the year 2025 would stay at 7.2% of the GDP, the economic growth at 1.3% and the public debt at 58%.

    (bill)

  • Romania between elections

    Romania between elections

    The result of the first round of the presidential election, which marked a historic break with the traditional parties, had significant effects on the financial markets, shaking the stock exchange and increasing Bucharest’s borrowing costs.

     

    According to analysts, investors perceive Romania as a riskier country, in the context in which the candidate who obtained the first place in this election round has economic and political visions that are far from the European values. The measures proposed by the candidate, Călin Georgescu, include a flat tax of 10%, stimulating wealth accumulation, taxing large companies with 2% of their turnover, redirecting European funds to small farmland owners and encouraging the free association of farmland owners in cooperatives. Economists argue that his economic plan is unrealistic and believe that the separation of Romania from the European market would be a disaster for local companies.

     

    They draw attention to the imminent danger that Romania is facing in the context of the results of the first round of the presidential election, warning that the country risks entering a crisis which it cannot overcome. After the results of the first round were announced, the Bucharest stock exchange fell by almost two points, the country’s borrowing costs rose, and analysts believe that an episode of Euroskepticism may lead to the loss of EU funds and a financial crisis. In fact, the electoral context in Romania has caused reactions of dissatisfaction both in the European Parliament and the European Commission.

     

    The events also drew the attention of the international media, with publications such as the Financial Times and Bloomberg writing about the political and economic effects of the results of the first round. Bloomberg, for example, writes that whoever takes power in Bucharest will face the challenge of repairing Romania’s finances. After the pandemic, the galloping inflation, the war in Ukraine and the government spending have put the country in a difficult situation.

     

    The publication’s analysts believe that the rapid increases in the minimum wage promoted by all governments in Bucharest in the last decade had only a limited impact, because companies were affected by the increase in labor costs and a decrease in the pool of qualified workers. And the Financial Times wrote, immediately after the results were announced, that a pro-Russian and far-right politician won the first round of the presidential election, shaking the country’s political establishment. Following the external concerns that emerged after the first round of the presidential election, the Romanian Foreign Ministry conveys that Romania is firmly committed to supporting democratic values, human rights, including gender equality, combating anti-Semitism, xenophobia and any forms of discrimination. They also say that the set of Romania’s foreign policy approaches is inseparable from Romania’s membership of the space of freedoms and rights, guaranteed by the status of member country of the EU and of NATO ally. (LS)

  • Surprising result in Romania’s presidential elections

    Surprising result in Romania’s presidential elections

    The independent candidate Călin Georgescu takes the lead in the first round of the presidential elections in Romania.

     

     

     

    Over 9.4 million Romanians cast their ballot for the country’s next president in the first round of voting on Sunday. The voter turnout rate was 52.55%, much higher than five years ago, when it stood at 42.19%. Over 820,000 Romanians voted abroad, most of them in the United Kingdom (150,000), Germany (145,000) and Italy (123,000). The big surprise of the election is the independent candidate Călin Georgescu, a 62-year-old agronomist engineer, who ranked first in the voters’ preferences. He worked as an expert in sustainable development and was secretary of state in the Ministry of Environment. He headed a department in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, then held various positions at the UN in the field of environment, for several years. Since 2013, he has been head of the European Research Centre of the Club of Rome, and is currently a professor at the University of Piteşti (south).

     

    The international media reports that Romanians are voting for extremism, which from a geopolitical point of view is a disaster. Electoral earthquake in Romania: a pro-Russian candidate that no one expected came out first in the first round of the presidential elections, ahead of the pro-European Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu, France Presse reports. A hard-right Romanian politician and NATO critic has achieved a shocking result that threatens Romania’s firm pro-Ukraine stance, Reuters reports. Călin Georgescu was associated with the Alliance for the Unity of Romanians (AUR), a party that had repeatedly mentioned his name as a candidate for prime minister. He was later removed by the AUR leadership, who accused him of damaging the party’s image with his pro-Russian and anti-NATO stance. In a 2021 interview, Călin Georgescu described NATO’s missile shield at Deveselu as “a shame of diplomacy” and said the Alliance would not protect any of its members if they were attacked by Russia. In addition, he said that Ion Antonescu, Romania’s de facto leader in World War II, who was sentenced to death for his role in the Holocaust, and Corneliu Zelea Codreanu, the leader of the Legionary movement – ​​one of the most violent and anti-Semitic in Europe – are national heroes.

     

    A criminal case was opened against Georgescu for promoting the personality cult of individuals suspected of genocide. Romania’s best chance is “Russian wisdom,” he said in another interview. Extremely religious and nationalist, he campaigned for reducing Romania’s dependence on imports, supporting farmers and increasing domestic food and energy production. Călin Georgescu stayed out of the spotlight and focused on social media. Romanians voted for him, including those in the diaspora, despite his strongly anti-Semitic, legionary, “messianic,” pro-Russian and anti-Western discourse. “I said we are not doing politics, we are doing history. It came true,” he pointed out, after the polling stations closed.