Over 30 years ago protests in Romania made a spectacular mark of the collapse of the communist system in Europe. Are the present protests in Romania going to be a mark of the collapse of the European Union?
Romania is having a fever. Romania is being brought to boiling point. One of these days Romania might explode.
Romanians more or less regularly have been taking to the streets over a couple of the last weeks to protest the decision of the Romanian Constitutional Court – in fact the decisions of the European dictators in Brussels. The decision was to annul the results of the presidential election that took place on 24 November 2024 on the flimsiest of grounds that there were ever of foreign interference in the form of exerting the political influence on the voters via TikTok. This most ridiculous justification underlying the decision to annul the election results has been compounded with others. What do we have, indeed! Yes, yes, the usual string of accusations that Călin Georgescu is far-right (how otherwise!), antisemitic (sure!), a sympathizer of fascism and Russia. One wonders which of these grave sins is the gravest. The list is not complete. Wikipedia has gathered all the remaining “nasty” facts about Călin Georgescu including his belief that humans did not land on the moon. Surely, an “intelligent” Wikipedia’s consumer will immediately classify Călin Georgescu as a nitwit. Some of the indictments, though, reveal why the managers of the European Union fear Călin Georgescu so much: Călin Georgescu thinks that Romania has been and continues to be exploited by Western companies and that the West has stemmed Romanian economic development. Now that’s something serious! Călin Georgescu might spoil the business of the many corporations. He could be far-right and even a fascist if only he did not want to deprive the powers that be of their profit! Fool that he is, he dared to touch the most sacred of the sacred: someone’s money!
The authorities did not stop at simply cancelling the vote. Since the polling data show that Călin Georgescu is now by far the most popular candidate, Bucharest – Romania’s capital – obviously took orders from Brussels, the overlord, to prevent Călin Georgescu from taking part in the repeat of the election that is planned for May this year. Indeed, when Călin Georgescu was filing his candidacy for the 2025 presidential election, he was detained and interrogated for a couple of hours. Two days later his candidacy was rejected. Democracy at work made by the EU.
The commissioners do not have a good memory. It was more than 30 years ago – that is well within living memory – that such protests in Romania brought about the collapse of Nicolae Ceausescu and the communist political system in the country. Similar protests did not erupt at that time in other socialist countries like Poland or Czechoslovakia, Hungary or Bulgaria or for that matter in East Germany: they erupted in Romania of all the places. Why?
Well, the communist authorities in the aforementioned countries were wise enough to feel the anger of their people, which resulted in their decision to cave in. as a result, there were only civilized, so to say, or mild revolutions or protests, round table talks and the like that gave vent to popular dissatisfaction with the political and economic reality. Only in Romania did the communist authorities not deem it clever to handle the rising tension with care: they chose to strengthen the iron grip on society and to suppress all manifestations of discontent by force and violence. So it came to pass that an initially insignificant protest in Timișoara that occurred in December 1989 morphed into a nation-wide revolution that brought about the collapse of Nicolae Ceausescu’s rule and, indeed, his death. Are the European commissioners not afraid of a repeat?
When one watches film footages showing the 1989 protests and compares them with the footages showing the 2025 protests, one thing attracts the viewer’s attention. In 1989, Romanians waved national flags with huge holes in their centre, an empty space left after the national coat of arms symbolizing socialist or communist Romania had been torn away. A clear message that the people were not merely against Romania’s President Ceausescu, but against the whole political system. What attracts attention in today’s protests is the fact that Romanians are waving plenty of Romanian national flags and… no flag of the European Union. Clearly, Romanians are aware of who the ultimate perpetrators of cancelling the election and banning Călin Georgescu
from the round in May are, and clearly Romanians say a big NO to the European Union.
The 1989 protests in Timișoara broke out over the person of Pastor László Tőkés, who was to be evicted by the authorities from his parish. The 2025 protests are over the annulment of the election results and over the banning of Călin Georgescu from presidential elections. Will Călin Georgescu become a symbol of another revolution that will be sparked not only in Romania but in the whole of the EU bloc?
