In his first interview in years, Ion Iliescu also talks about the period when he studied in Moscow as a scholar and the criticism that he was a Russophile.

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• Ion Iliescu speaks of a “healthy democracy that involves forgiveness and truth” / “I regret some episodes of the first years after the revolution. It was inevitable”

Former president Ion Iliescu gave an interview to his adviser Ionuc Vulpescu, PSD’s former culture minister and current deputy, in which he says, among other things, that the West saw him as “pro-American” and critics called him a “Russophile.” .

• You can read the full interview here

• “He who spent five years with the Russians can think even like Bush. I’m not saying that. I give you a different voice than mine. Alfred Moses, the former US ambassador to Romania, has a book that documents our transition and especially our NATO integration efforts: Journal de Bucharest: Romania’s Road from Darkness to Light.
• There you will find a description that will shock many: “Ion Iliescu was pro-American!” And this despite the fact that we once had a conflict of views. At some point, I got terribly angry and told him: “Mr. Ambassador, even Brezhnev did not speak the way you do with us!”. Not exactly a Russophile line, right? Of course, Ambassador Moses had an appropriate response that led to the wisdom of our friendship, namely that he is a better friend of Romania than Brezhnev ever was,” Iliescu stated, also referring to the visit he made to Romania in November 2002, by former US President George Bush.
• “Furthermore, I must tell you that no President of Romania, who did not think like Bush, would move this country towards NATO. But we love slogans,” Iliescu also said.

“I rather dislike Romanian society than like it”

When asked if he likes Romania today, Ion Iliescu said that he likes the country today “with its mistakes and triumphs”:

• “I dislike Romanian society more than I like it, but I don’t want it to seem that because of my age I am rejecting certain realities that are incompatible with the way I have lived my life.
• I’m not nostalgic for my time, but I have reservations about the present. We do not live in a bad world, I repeat, from the outside it looks completely different, more optimistic and fairer, but it is an ideal world.”

What is Iliescu doing now?

Ion Iliescu says he now spends his time reading, including print newspapers, watching documentaries and playing snooker and tennis:

• “I read a lot, I had the mental hygiene of a small child. Reading has always been a possible journey for me at any time and any destination. I read selectively and cannot imagine a world where libraries are an aesthetic object.
• I watch a lot of documentaries – from this point of view, the engineer in me has always chosen to be curious about the latest discoveries in the field. I have a weakness for scientific and technical revolutions, I absorb them with real pleasure.
• I look at the world of sport with the same enthusiasm and retain the pleasure of watching snooker competitions, which always require a foresight and a calculated response to a series of possibilities and indirect choices. I was delighted to meet Ronnie O’Sullivan. I saw him play Jimmy White.
• I often watch tennis, I was a big fan of Roger Federer. I stayed in touch with many of our great champions. I used to run a kayaking and canoeing federation. I was close to Ivan Patsaichyn from the beginning of his career.
• I still read paper newspapers. I’m sorry that I no longer go to the theater and concerts.”

Iliescu has not appeared in public since March 2017, when he went to the Prosecutor General’s Office, which prosecutors cited in the Revolution case, which brought him to trial for crimes against humanity. In the meantime, the case was transferred between the Military Prosecutor’s Office and the Supreme Court, which in February 2023 decided to send the case to the Bucharest Court of Appeal on the grounds that it would be within its competence, as Ion Iliescu was not the President of Romania at the time.