Recently, there has been more and more talk of sovereignty, a trend that seems to have developed and gained momentum in Europe. In Romania, the AUR is the party that uses the term most often in its rhetoric and is even trying to create a sovereignist pole with an eye on the 2024 elections.

What is sovereignty

According to Christian Preda, Dean of the Faculty of Political Science, sovereignty at the moment “opposition to the European Union”.

• Cristian Preda: “In short, sovereignty is a doctrine improvised in various member states by those who are radical opponents of the Union, they are unhappy that they entered the EU, they would like to leave.”

Sovereignism originated in Europe with the Brexit initiative launched by UKIP (United Kingdom Independence Party) and continued in Germany with the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD).

“The AfD started the debate in the most aggressive way, arguing that the introduction of the euro in Germany would destroy their economy, and therefore promoting the idea of ​​a return to the mark. Similarly, in France, Le Pen’s party has become critical of the European Union and launched the possibility of Frexit. The idea spread in Italy, where the Northern League advocated the unification of Italy. That’s how we got to the conservative party of Maloni and the Brothers of Italy,” explains Christian Preda.

The political scientist draws attention to the fact that once the extremists could not reach a common goal, today the situation has changed radically.

“Anti-Europeans from different member states can be brought together because they will say: ‘We love the Europe that means anything but the Union.’ Sovereignty will be promoted as an assertion of national identity, sovereignty, control, and then rhetorical manipulations can occur. Just as Putin tells us that he is the only one who will save Ukraine, the sovereignists will tell us that they are the only ones who will save Europe, although they want to destroy a united Europe,” the political scientist explains.

Sovereignty in Europe

Today, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, leader of FIDESZ, Giorgia Maloney, president of the Fratelli d’Italia party, FDI, or Jarosław Kaczyński, president of the Polish conservative ruling party Law and Justice (PiS), are among the active leaders who promote and support sovereignty in Europe.

Actually, not earlier than 2021, the leaders of European nationalist and far-right parties met in Warsaw and discussed the possibility of joint votes in the European Parliament, but they failed to conclude a formal alliance.

As AFP reports, the leaders of fifteen European conservative and far-right parties took part in the meeting in the capital of Poland. Among them were Viktor Orban, Marine Le Pen and Yaroslav Kaczynski.

In a joint statement sent at the end, the participants reaffirmed their opposition to a “Europe ruled by a self-proclaimed elite”, stressing that “only the sovereign institutions of states have full democratic legitimacy”.

George Simion: AUR is working to create a sovereign pole in Romania

In Romania, AUR is the correspondent of sovereignty and tries to promote its doctrine and win as many followers as possible. In this sense, on November 2, the AUR organized the conference “Sovereignty Today!” in the parliament, organized by the “Mihai Eminescu” Institute for Conservative Political Studies, led by AUR Senator Claudio Tirziou.

Among those present at the event were the Italian journalist Pasquale Ferraro, the director of “Nazione Futura”, public activist Marian Munteanu, journalist Sorin Roska Stenescu, analyst Dorin Jacob, lawyers Tony Nyaksu and Gheorghe Piperea, parliamentarians, representatives of several associations and non-governmental organizations. organizations

At the same time, George Simion’s party is organizing the international conference “The Europe we believe in” in the parliament on the weekend of November 12-13. Party leaders, representatives of national legislative assemblies and MEPs take part in the event.

Among them, Andre Ventura, leader of the CHEGA party (CHEGA deputy in the Parliament of the Portuguese Republic), Carlo Fidans, a member of the European Parliament and head of the Fratelli d’Italia delegation in the Group of European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR). ), Leena Mary – the first vice-president of the “Party of Finns”, Nicholas Bey – the vice-president of Reconquete and a member of the European Parliament.

Contacted by Hotnews.ro, George Simion says that the AUR is working on the creation of a sovereignist pole in Romania and that there are already discussions on this with several small formations.

• George Simion: “We are working on creating a pillar with an eye to the 2024 election. We met with representatives of the National Peasant Alliance headed by Radu Gideu and the president of the Republican Party, Marian Kucha. This pole will also include parties and public associations and personalities, but I can’t give you more details about people or organizations because I don’t have their consent,” says George Simion.

The leader of AUR explains what the sovereignist pole means in his vision: “AUR is an entity that supports membership in the EU and NATO, we are not followers of ROEXIT, instead we believe that our foreign policy in many aspects should be similar to the policy of Poland. and Hungary, EU and NATO member states. At the European level, there are several currents now: the federalist current of the United States of Europe, the current that wants to centralize decisions in Brussels, and there is also the sovereignist current, of which we are a part, that wants the continuation of the EU, but in the form of preserving each individual idea of ​​thinking.”

The AUR leader wanted to clarify that parties led by politicians who led Romania are excluded from discussions on the creation of a sovereign platform. “It is ruled out that characters like Codrin Stefanescu, Liviu Dragnea or Viorica Dencila represent an alternative for the partnership with AUR, because these characters are associated with the looting and corruption that took place in Romania in the last 30 years,” says Simion.

Small parties and their opinion on the creation of a sovereign pole

Recently, a number of parties have appeared on the Romanian political scene, promoting conservatism and national interests as their doctrine.

Among them are the Coalition for the Nation led by Dan Citic, the People’s Nation Together (NOI) – Viorica Dencila, the Alliance for the Fatherland – Codrin Stefanescu, the Right Alternative (left the AUR), the Party of the Romanian Nation – Ninel Peia.

Dan Chittick, leader of the Coalition for a Nation says that his formation is conservative and fully fits into the sovereignist trend. In addition, the Coalition for the Nation proposed and submitted to parliament a law on sovereignty, which was rejected by parliamentarians after the intervention of PSD and PNL leaders.

• Dan Chittick, Coalition for the Nation: “For us, sovereignty is about putting the national interest first and having the authority to make decisions, even if you make the wrong decisions. Sovereignty comes from the sovereign, the royal right to decide and it belongs to the people, which means that we Romanians have the right to choose according to our specific and immediate interests, not the interests of a broad and extremely vague defined family, like the European family I. (…)
• When you have a family that humiliates you and makes you wait at the Schengen gate and imposes the mechanisms of justice on you, a justice that works better here than in the Netherlands, and then asks you for solidarity and to give your resources for the common good . ..it’s so wrong. If Trump said “America First” and didn’t get arrested, we can also say “Romania First”

According to Dan Citic, the law on sovereignty is the basis of the platform that will unite Romania’s sovereignist parties.

“We have about 60% of the electorate who support sovereignty and conservatism. It is necessary to set a real goal and convince 25-30%. In my opinion, there were only informal and not institutional discussions about the creation of a sovereign pole. If we manage to overcome arrogance, we can create a common platform that would centralize 25-30% of the electorate. Any future political cooperation with the AUR will be realized only on the basis of a political agreement registered as an alliance in the yard, not by handshakes, not by participating in joint lists, because we have a painful memory of each other,” he believes. Day Chitic.

Viorika Dencila, Nation People Together (NOI) says the party he leads is center-left but is not in favor of an electoral alliance in the 2024 elections.

• Viorika Dencila: “I don’t see an alliance with an extremist party. We are a patriotic, nationalist party, but we are a pro-European party in a united Europe and decently support national interests. We want an alliance only for the electoral purpose of getting certain people into the parliament. For us, the alliance means having with us people who adhere to the same principles, the same state program, the same directions in various spheres of activity. I believe that at this moment Romania should form its foreign policy and have relations with all the countries of the world on the basis of mutual respect and development of Romania.”

Codrin Ștefănescu Alliance for the Homeland (APP) says that there are two types of parties in Romania: “the ruling parties, which together have sold Romania’s interests to foreigners, and the so-called sovereign parties, which argue with each other over the number of bodyguards or security generals they have inside.”

• Codrin Stefanescu, Alianța pentru Patrie: “If you are sovereignist and pro-Romanian, you are definitely the center if there is still any doctrine in Romania. I do not believe in the sovereignist pole, because there are no truly sovereignist parties except us. In order to be sovereign in one’s country, one must master the rules of the game, and this is a double measure for us. We just got rid of Dragna and his Coldist token. AUR will not be able to collapse the sovereign pole in Romania because it has too many problems. After the media war between Simion and Sosoake, public opinion found that they were hiding very obscure interests. Then they tried to go to Dan Chittick’s Coalition for a Nation, and there with the four Justice Knights they couldn’t reach a consensus.”

The future of sovereignty in Romania

The dean of the Faculty of Political Sciences, Christian Preda, points out that for the 2024 election year, the AUR is gaining momentum and “it is possible that other local entrepreneurs or small parties that exist on paper and which, probably only gathered together, will mean something electorally, will be beaten.”

“With a grand coalition in power that is anti-reform, and with an opposition that includes this sovereignty, and another democratic political force unable to maintain the share it barely got in the elections (ESP), Romania has the worst political situation since 1990. What is important is what the regional and European context will be like in 2024. It is important that the first test will be the elections to the European Parliament, and this will allow us to articulate such positions, because sovereignty is first of all an anti-European position, and then it is possible that the first battle will set the entire European calendar,” says Christian Preda.

Instead, political scientist Barbu Mateescu believes that “the attractiveness of sovereignty in Romania is complicated by the state’s poor performance in many areas” and will play “the role of second fiddle.”

“Unlike Western countries, Romania does not have an idyllic basic plan of efficiency before the EU in terms of the economy, the quality of medical or educational services provided to the population, etc. The benchmark “how well we lived before the European Union compared to now” is limited. That is why in Romania, sovereignty appeals to abstract values ​​or, on the contrary, plays the role of second fiddle compared to other messages.

In Romania, the baton has been passed over time by several political vectors – but never by two at the same time. AUR did not exist during Dragni’s time, Mircea Diaconu disappeared from public consciousness with the appearance of AUR, etc. It is hard to believe – but not impossible – that in 2024 the AUR will have serious competition in terms of delivering sovereignist messages,” the political scientist concludes.