It is Europe Day on Saturday, but President Nicusor Dan used the occasion to promise Romanians a ‘pro-Western government’.
The nuance may be lost on some, but ‘pro-Western’ covers hard-right group AUR who are pro-MAGA, i.e Pro-American, i.e. pro-Western (even though AUR are anti-Ukraine and critical of Brussels).
President Dan has promised to keep the far-right party out of government after Liberal PM Ilie Bolojan’s government was ousted in a no-confidence vote but his options are limited.
The Liberals and another pro-European party have announced they are going into opposition, meaning the Social Democrats may need the support of the Euroskeptic group for a majority.
Here are President Dan’s remarks:
“For Romania, 20 years of the European Union have meant modernization and especially the increase in living standards,” he said.
As for the internal political situation, he reiterated that “Romania will have a pro-Western government in a reasonable time.”
“The European Union was first and foremost peace in Europe, and peace brings prosperity, and peace is not self-evident, as we see in the war that is taking place near us. For Romania, 20 years of the European Union have meant modernization and especially the increase in the standard of living,” he said.
He noted the average salary has tripled to 80% of the average salary in the European Union.
“It is true that, in Romania, the difference between high and low salaries is greater than elsewhere in Europe. It is also true that there is corruption…. however… after 20 years, Romanians are doing much better than they were 20 years ago.”
“In these 20 years, Romania has paid 36 billion euros and collected 110 billion, so a difference of 74 billion euros in Romania’s net income in this period. Of these, 45 billion went to agriculture and the development of Romanian villages. We have 4,000 kilometers of roads that have either been built or modernized with European money. We have hundreds of millions of euros that went on Romanian identity symbols – churches, monasteries, fortresses, castles, Sarmizegetusa, museums, all this with European money,” he listed.
Going back to pro-Western, he stressed that Europe and Romania need the EU to have a fair, solid, equitable partnership with the United States.
