The US government is concerned about foreign interference in Romania’s recent presidential election and has offered Romania support in investigating the alleged interference.
Romania’s Supreme Defense Council last month declassified documents revealing meddling by a foreign state in the election that President Klaus Iohannis later said was Russia which carried out “complex and subtle” interference.
According to Romania’s Foreign Intelligence Service, SIE, Romania “has become a priority for Russia’s hostile actions, with the Kremlin’s growing interest in influencing (at least) the mood and agenda in Romanian society in the electoral context.”
Bucharest’s top court canceled the runoff on Dec. 6, two days before it began. Since then, there has been little communication about the reported meddling or announcement of an investigation.
Deputy Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs James O’Brien on Tuesday confirmed that Washington had detected foreign interference.
“The US government supports democracy, we want the Romanian people to make the choice they believe is right for them. And we see foreign interference in connection with these elections, both a pattern that has been attributed to Russia in other cases, on social media and other manipulations, and very clearly, according to Romanian reports, a Russian intrusion into public institutions,” O’Brien said in a meeting with journalists at the US embassy in Bucharest.
“And this is worrying, because it makes it more difficult for the Romanian people to make decisions. We want Romanians to decide for Romania, without this foreign interference,” he added.
He said Washington trusted Romania’s intelligence agencies. “We have great confidence in what the Romanian government has said,” he said.
“We have announced that we support the investigation in any way we can. But…it is a Romanian investigation, the Romanians make their own sovereign decisions. If I were Romanian, I would ask who is paying, for what, and who will benefit from a certain outcome. And that will go a long way in determining who can be trusted and who cannot,” he observed.
“And a lot of this depends on courageous investigative journalism. Because that is where a lot of the stories come from, not from the secret services, but from strong, quality journalism. So I encourage everyone to support independent journalism,” he added,
The Constitutional Court annulled the results of the first round of the presidential elections which was improbably won by radical anti-Western outsider, Călin Georgescu. The annulment was based on declassified documents from various intelligence agencies.
The files showed that Georgescu violated electoral legislation by reporting zero expenses to the Permanent Electoral Authority, while intelligence indicated that the financing of his successful TikTok campaign was carried out by Bogdan Peşchir and amounted to one million euros.
Declassified documents said that there were actions by a state cyber actor on the IT&C infrastructures supporting the electoral process and that Romania is a target for aggressive Russian hybrid actions.
According to Romania’s Foreign Intelligence Service, SIE, Romania “has become a priority for Russia’s hostile actions, with the Kremlin’s growing interest in influencing (at least) the mood and agenda in Romanian society in the electoral context.”
Georgescu has appealed the decision to annul the elections and appealed at the European High Court for Justice.
