What Romania Got Right, and Why the World Should Pay Attention
Thoughts on the international significance of Romania’s presidential elections
Last week I published for the Center for Civic Participation and Democracy an article about the impact of the recent Romanian presidential elections in the European and international arena. Below is an English translation. The article was written before we knew the outcome of the presidential elections in Poland.
Here is the original version for my Romanian language readers: https://civicparticipation.ro/semnificatia-in-plan-extern-a-alegerilor-prezidentiale-din-romania/
After a period of uncertainty and interim leadership at the highest levels of the state, after months of social division, fear for the future, and an escalation in far-right rhetoric and disinformation, Romanian citizens have elected a new president. In the presidential runoff, the pro-European independent candidate Nicușor Dan won 53.6% of the votes (over 6.1 million votes), while his isolationist nationalist opponent (self-intitled „sovereignist”) secured 46.4% (over 5.3 million votes). See here my previous Substack article in which I analyzed the result.
The Romanian presidential elections held on May 4 and 18, 2025, were closely watched by the entire democratic world. This vote was more important than ever - not only for Romania, but also for Europe, for the regional security architecture, and for the fight between democracy and extremism globally.
In the past few decades, foreign policy has been one of Romania’s steady pillars. To paraphrase a well-known expression, foreign policy "stopped at the border." No matter what parties or coalitions held power, the core direction of Romanian foreign policy remained constant: defined by NATO and EU membership and by the Strategic Partnership with the United States.
That changed in 2025.
One of the major stakes of this year’s presidential elections was the very content of Romanian foreign policy, its stance in the region, in the EU, and within NATO, along with the ripple effects that would follow. The path Romania would take, as well as the regional balance of power, depended directly on the results of the presidential elections. Despite its internal issues, Romania has remained a consistent pillar in the strategic and security framework of NATO’s Eastern Flank, in the Black Sea region, and in Central and Eastern Europe, especially as Russia continues to pose the greatest security threat to Europe.
Romania is a key, even indispensable, piece of the Eastern Flank’s security domino. A simple glance at the map is enough to see that. Romania’s shift eastward, toward isolationism and Russian influence, and effectively stepping out of the bloc of European countries supporting Ukraine in its defense against Russian aggression - as one candidate advocated), would have given Russia a major advantage. It would have isolated and endangered the Republic of Moldova and made it harder for European allies to support Ukraine.
Let’s not forget that for Vladimir Putin’s Russia, the West, with its democratic institutions, values, and ideals, is the enemy. Beyond the military conflict with tanks and drones raging in Ukraine, Russia is also waging hybrid warfare, using disinformation and manipulation to divide Western societies, fuel hatred and distrust in democracy, to spread conspiracy theories and malign propaganda. Romania has been at the center of these efforts.
Here is how Jason Jay Smart, a foreign policy analyst specializing in Russia and Ukraine, interprets the impact of the May 18 election:
Romania’s presidential election wasn’t just another national contest. It was a firewall - against Russian interference, against algorithmic manipulation, and against the accelerating collapse of democratic systems under hybrid warfare.
Nicușor Dan’s victory is more than a domestic development. It is a geopolitical signal. A win for the European Union, NATO, Moldova, and Ukraine. A loss for the Kremlin’s playbook of chaos.
A similar assessment came from Olga Lautman, senior fellow at the Center for European Policy and Analysis (CEPA):
This was far more than a routine election. Romania sits on the front line of Europe’s geopolitical confrontation with Russia. Long before Russia’s full-scale genocidal invasion of Ukraine, Romania was a committed NATO member and regional security player—but since February 2022, its role has grown even more critical. Sharing a border with Ukraine, Romania has become one of Kyiv’s staunchest allies—facilitating aid, sheltering refugees, expanding NATO deployments, and continuing to serve as a vital security partner in the Black Sea region.
Yet Romania’s elections weren’t viewed solely through the lens of regional or European security. They also fit into broader global trends.
From what we’ve seen so far, Romania has been part of two major currents: the anti-incumbent wave which was a defining feature of the 2024 “super election year”, with reverberations into 2025, and another trend of rejection against nationalist-extremist-isolationist excesses.
The return of Donald Trump to the White House and the victory of the MAGA movement in the U.S. elections did not, at least so far, trigger a domino effect in other countries. On the contrary, the American experience and the early consequences of Trump’s second term have sparked a “rally around the flag” effect in other countries, a renewed alignment around democratic values and against far-right forces. Most MAGA-style movements and candidates have not succeeded in replicating the American success abroad.
Western media have placed Romania’s elections in the same trend seen in Canada and Australia, echoed in recent votes in Germany and Portugal. As Brian O’Neil, a former senior executive at the U.S. National Counterterrorism Center, observes, results in these countries, though they reveal the fragility of democracy and the rise of extremist forces, have nonetheless avoided catastrophic scenarios.
These elections aren’t aftershocks to the Canadian, Australian, and German results. They’re continuations - more signals from a world where democratic resilience is conditional, not guaranteed. The center is still holding. Barely.
Even so, the results have created conditions - not ideal, not permanent, but sufficient - for Europe to enter a critical stretch with a functioning democratic core intact. And that matters, because the next test won’t come at the polls. It will come at the negotiating table.
Finally, Romania’s results show that anti-system or anti-incumbent votes do not equate to a rejection of democracy. Former chess champion and outspoken Moscow regime dissident Garry Kasparov, now a well-known pro-democracy activist, sees Romania’s elections as offering valuable lessons to other societies facing similar dilemmas. Kasparov notes that rejecting mainstream parties’ solutions and seeking change doesn’t necessarily mean embracing extreme options. It can coexist with a firm pro-democracy commitment:
Freedom is a grave responsibility for Romanian voters. The alternative is not theoretical. We should respect the seriousness with which they treat their democratic duty. In the aftermath of Nicușor Dan’s victory, Americans—and free people everywhere—ought to take a page out of the Romanian playbook and recognize that pro-democracy and anti-establishment can go hand-in-hand.