Former Romanian presidential candidate, Calin Georgescu can stand trial on charges of promoting ‘legionnaire propaganda”
The Bucharest Tribunal on Monday definitively rejected his appeal against the charges as ‘baseless’ meaning he will stand trial. No date has been set.
“Rejects, as unfounded, the appeal filed by the challenger – defendant Georgescu Călin, against the conclusion pronounced on 09.12.2025 by the preliminary chamber judge of the Court of Sector 1 of Bucharest,” a statement said.
“It obliges the challenger – defendant to pay the amount of 400 lei, as judicial expenses advanced by the state”, according to a solution of the Bucharest Tribunal. The ruling is final.
Georgescu, 63, a Russia-supporting vaccine skeptic who praised his country’s WWII fascist leaders and won a shock first-round victory in Romania’s 2024 presidential election. The election was later cancelled over Russian interference and Georgescu was banned from the rerun. Moscow denies it manipulated the vote on social media.
Prosecutors sent Georgescu to trial on July 2, 2025 on charges of publicly promoting from June 2020 to May 2025,the cult of persons guilty of committing crimes of genocide, against humanity and war crimes and publicly promoting fascist, legionary, racist or xenophobic ideas, conceptions or doctrines, in continuous form.
They said he tried to normalize and ‘revitalize’ the legionnaire movement and pro-Nazi World War II leader, Marshal Ion Antonescu under which hundreds of thousands of Jews, Roma and others were killed during the war.
Over time Georgescu “has affirmed… in interviews, statements or online posts, his pro-legionary ideological …links to the neo-legionary environment with promoters of the neo-legionary ideology, in order to produce a change of perception regarding the historical framing of the Legionary Movement, in an attempt to normalize and revitalize legionarism and the historical figures connected to this ideology,” prosecutors said.
