The political and geopolitical shock produced by Russian influence in Romania’s November 2024 presidential elections, has had a positive side effect, namely it woke up Romanian institutions whose job is to investigate and hold accountable those who promote:
- The Cult of War Criminals
- The cult of those charged with genocide
- Fascist ideas, legionarism, racism, antisemitism, xenophobia
- Holocaust denial
For years, we had legislation, perpetrators freely expressed their ideas, but they were not held accountable– the Romanian justice was sleeping, implausibly peaceful, and society permitted a dangerous amount.
In such an atmosphere, extremists and revisionists of all stripes thrived, they felt so safe in recent years, that they allowed themselves the following:
- They made a routine out of staging egregious “commemorations” which betrayed a deep contempt for the victims, for the historical truth, and the law.
- They organized conferences, blogs, websites, accounts and social media pages.
- They enjoyed funding from obscure sources, via obscure routes.
- They set up civic and even paramilitary organizations using names such as “Dacian”, “patriotic” and naturally “ancestral”.
Slowly but surely, they expanded, and even established political parties that they fueled with the ‘hormones of hatred’ to make them grow.
Some of these parties managed to reach a level that made them electorally relevant – entering Parliament, where they were finally being able to dream of being in government.
The long slumber of some Romanian state institutions has given these forces the breathing room and a safe space to publicly manifest. The hyperactivity of the Putin regime also contributed to their development and proliferation, at least in part.
It is a criminal regime, which cultivates, encourages and finances such phenomena in many countries, not only in Romania.
In fact, Russia itself, from Lenin and Stalin to Putin, is on the domestic front, a huge furnace of racism, chauvinism and anti-Semitism. It is a terrorist state that shouts “terrorists!”, just as it is a fascist state that shouts “fascists!”.
It is also the same state that, before waging war with the Nazis, made a pact with Hitler to jointly tear Europe apart.
With the shock of the November 2024 presidential elections, the justice system in Romania has finally begun to work in a different way on cases of this kind. Some of the protagonists are household names, others less so.
Among the VIPs is Calin Georgescu, the pro-Russian candidate for whom Moscow’s foreign espionage (SVR) publicly rescued through a press statement.
But perhaps the most spectacular case in terms of substance is someone else: the criminal case opened in the name of Diana Șoșoacă, a regular visitor to the Russian Embassy in Bucharest, who regularly talks to the Kremlin’s official and unofficial media.
The Șoșoaca case is spectacular and interesting because the defendant enjoys notoriety at a national level. Her public statements are unequivocal about the topic of interest in this article. But above all, Diana Șoșoacă, through a cruel mockery committed by history against Romania, is also an MEP today.
Being an MEP, Diana Șoșoaca has parliamentary immunity, and in order to advance in the case against her, Romanian prosecutors must request for her immunity to be lifted. But precisely because Șoșoaca is an MEP, these steps will no longer be taken in Bucharest, but by the relevant institution at the heart of the European community, the European Parliament.
This means that any anti-justice and political shield that Soșoacă was hoping for, has little chance of success.
But perhaps even more constructive than this, is the fact that Diana Șoșoaca’s story will have international relevance – both in the media and institutional.
And the story of Diana Șoșoaca, who heads the SOS party, has the following accusations in the criminal investigation brought by Romanian prosecutors:
- Public promotion of the cult of persons who have been convicted of genocide and war crimes
- Promotion of fascist, legionary, racist or xenophobic ideas, conceptions or doctrines
- Denying, contesting, approving, justifying or publicly belittling in any way, the Holocaust or its effects
We know all too well from the experience we gained over two decades ago preparing Romania’s accessions to NATO and the EU that any international exposure of a story that originates in Bucharest often has higher chances of helping Romania to draw the necessary lessons faster and more efficiently, and abandoning traditional national lethargy to make the necessary progress that can heal it in the long term.
The criminal case against Diana Șoșoacă, through the legal imperative of lifting the r immunity she enjoys as an MEP, fits this narrative precisely.
The “Georgescu” shock of 2024 forced the Romanian justice system to open Pandora’s Box for this kind of Romanian extremists. The “Șoșoacă” shock, in 2025, can make the Romanian justice system make greater strides in dealing with this type of crime.
And it can help Romanian society relate to the historical truth and the great challenges of the present in a way that immunizes it rather than continuing to anesthetize it.
Romania rebuffs Putin accusation that it manipulated elections
