Romania is on NATO’s eastern flank, and it is feeling the heat from drone incursions attributed to Russia, and from the Trump administration’s strategic shift away from Europe. We speak to Romanian President Nicușor Dan about how his country is faring with these headwinds, and also about tough economic reforms that have put pressure on his fragile coalition government.
We put it to Dan that the US decision to withdraw some US troops from Romania is part of a deliberate strategic shift away from Europe.
“The United States and Europe have a lot of common interests and transatlantic relations will continue,” he counters. “Regarding the troops, there were some circular troops that were not stabilised in Romania. It was just a technical decision. It’s not something to worry about. We still have around 1,000 American soldiers, especially in three very precise bases in Romania. So it’s just technical.”
We also discuss the EU Commission’s landmark SAFE (Security Action for Europe) initiative, under which Romania is the second-largest beneficiary, after Poland.
“Before the Ukraine war, it was business as usual,” Dan points out. “Now we have a (military) equipment plan, until 2040. The €16 billion SAFE (loan) is part of this plan. On the drone part, we have cooperation with Ukraine, which of course has experience of war. So part of the 16 billion will be for having a good response to the drone (threat).”
On military investments, Dan explains that Romania “had a big military industry in Communist times. We exported everywhere: the Middle East, South America. We didn’t have good management after 1989, but we still have workers, production sites and good conditions, and we hope to attract investors from the European side in order to produce.”
Despite Romania’s continuing interest in American weapons, Dan underlines that the country “will concentrate on European equipment and try to improve our defence industry.”
We turn to domestic issues and the high support for the hard-right populist Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR) in opinion polls.
“There’s not much trust from people towards classical parties and classical policies,” Dan says. “It is for that reason that we have 40 percent of Romanian people saying, ‘we need something completely different’. But this does not mean that 40 percent of the Romanian population is pro-Russian or anti-European. It’s just a question of trust between people and the Romanian state and the Romanian administration.”
Dan admits that one reason for this lack of trust is a failure to tackle corruption. Corruption is “a phenomenon that involves many people, many administrations, many parts of the administration”, he says. “I am very determined to act. There must be administrative and legislative measures, and also in the judicial system. And there is a need for society to act in this direction.”
Programme prepared by Oihana Almandoz, Perrine Desplats, Isabelle Romero, Agnès Le Cossec, Charlotte Prudhomme and Luke Brown
