Bucharest's education minister responds to Vance: "Romania is a young democracy"

Brussels – The amount of controversy triggered by Donald Trump’s administration seems to be unstoppably growing, reaching the Balkans, from where the Romanian education minister responds to the US vice president’s attacks on the state of democracy in the European country.

The story began on Friday (Feb. 14) at the Munich security conference, when JD Vance openly criticized the Romanian Constitutional Court’s decision to annul the Dec. 21 presidential elections, which pro-Russian and ultranationalist candidate Călin Georgescu overwhelmingly won. The vote was invalidated based on alleged “uncertain suspicions and tremendous pressure from neighbors,” Vance said, referring to the provisions of President Klaus Iohannis, who demanded the declassification of intelligence documents indicating a Russian interference in the Romanian electoral process, as suggested by the enormous visibility Georgescu enjoyed on TikTok. Even the European Commission questioned the attitude of the Chinese social media, accused of not putting adequate instruments in place to limit malicious interference in the elections.

“Now, as I understand it, the argument was that Russian disinformation had infected the Romanian elections, but I’d ask my European friends to have some perspective,” the vice president had said. “You can believe it’s wrong for Russia to buy social media advertisements to influence your elections. We certainly do. But if your democracy can be destroyed with a few hundred thousand dollars of digital advertising from a foreign country, then it wasn’t very strong to begin with.”

Last night (Feb. 19), Romanian Minister of Education and Research Daniel David, in his blog, rejected Vance’s allegations, saying he is “convinced that the elections were influenced.” The minister, who received academic training in the US, emphasized how, from a US perspective, things may seem as Vance says, but “in the case of our country, a still young democracy, what is little (frail) for a strong democracy like the USA can become much (dangerous) for us!” he said. “And the European Union, which is closer and understands the situation of the country better, was on the same line as our country,” he added.

Vance’s criticisms of the democratic nature of the Balkan country came just days after Iohannis resigned (Feb. 10) after the far-right parties activated – following two failed attempts — the parliamentary procedure to suspend the head of state.

“The threat that I worry the most about vis-à-vis Europe is not Russia, it’s not China, it’s not any other external actor. And what I worry about is the threat from within,” the vice president said in front of European leaders in Munich. Referring to the annulment of elections, he also warned that “the very same thing could happen in Germany, too.” Strong statements say a lot about JD Vance, who had no problem calling as irregular the elections that had given candidate Donald Trump defeat in 2020 or hailing the pressure put on Georgia’s pollsters in 2024, and who now more than ever reminds Europe how the real enemy of the continent’s security is not Putin, but the woke virus.

Also having his say on the Romanian electoral process was Elon Musk who, on Tuesday, Feb. 18, wrote on his social network X: “Romania deserves its own sovereignty!” echoing a post on the Inevitable West page that wrote: “BREAKING: Călin Georgescu announces that on his first day as president, he will ban the entire Soros network in Romania.” The post has already garnered more than 9 million views and directly quotes the words of the ultranationalist candidate who won in the first round of the annulled Dec. 2024 elections.