Far-right neo-Legionary movement looms over Romania's election re-run
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Euronews
07-08-2025
- Euronews
Romania lays to rest divisive first post-communist leader Ion Iliescu
Romania's first elected president after communism, Ion Iliescu, was buried Thursday amid stark divisions over his legacy. A religious ceremony was held at the presidential Cotroceni Palace before Iliescu's casket was transferred to a cemetery for military honours. He died Tuesday at age 95 after a lung cancer diagnosis following years of declining health, after retiring from public life in 2017. Yet, even in those years, President Iliescu continued to symbolise Romania's violent transition from communism to democracy in the 1989 revolution, followed by years of convulsions as Romanians embarked on and succeeded in their pro-Western journey. He dominated over a decade of Romania's post-communist evolution, with his shrewd mastery of navigating the endless crises that gripped the country over and over again, often with tragic results. His personality, actions and legacy remain too complex to be explicated in black and white terms to the point that Romanians remain divided whether Iliescu saved Romania in 1989 and thereafter by keeping it together, or if he destroyed the extraordinary impression Romanians made with their courage in confronting dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu's repressive system with their bare hands. Man of the hour Educated in the USSR and initiated by the Soviets as the Gorbachev-type of alternative to Ceaușescu, Iliescu turned out to be the man of the moment in the 1989 Revolution. Iliescu first served as a minister in the communist government but was sidelined in 1971. He then held de facto military authority during the anti-communist revolt. He assumed power and his first major decision was to order that Nicolae Ceaușescu and his wife Elena be executed by firing squad on 25 December 1989. In the first hours after dictator Ceaușescu fled, Iliescu surfaced with the support of the security apparatus to grab power and start Romania's painful transition towards a prudent democracy. Iliescu's legacy is now for the historians to dissect, as he evaded a major war crimes trial that would settle the record on the tragedies of the Romanian revolution, including the accusations that a coup d'etat led by the Communist party apparatchiks and the repressive military and security forces confiscated the real revolution of 16-22 December 1989. More than 1,100 people died during the revolution, 862 of them after Iliescu had seized power, in a national psychosis that the so-called 'terrorists' organised by Ceaușescu to keep him in power were fighting back and killing the revolutionaries. He denied any wrongdoing and refused to be interrogated by military prosecutors, claiming his actions were for the success of the revolution. In the meantime, he ended up being the one cautioning that a country of 23 million emerging overnight from decades of a harrowing, debilitating dictatorship cannot jump face forward into a capitalist European democracy. He was both loathed and loved by a divided Romania, a polarisation that still grips the society to this day. With his apparently suave and warm display, Iliescu was on one hand projecting a calming safety to those afraid of an overnight change of the world around them, but he was equally combating, often in violent, tragic manners, those who wanted to decisively cut the communist umbilical cord and move fast towards a Western society. He did it all in his own way, carefully manoeuvring the levers of society with his true Socialist beliefs. As some still claim he was a political visionary, Iliescu gradually shifted his eastward sympathies to his own library and decisively pushed for Romania to join the European Union and NATO, with success. One last political rift While many former leaders and officials paid tribute to Iliescu on Thursday, in contrast to the Save Romania Union party, a governing coalition partner that opposed the day of national mourning and said party representatives would not attend the funeral, triggering a rift in the recently sworn-in government. USR's decision drew the ire of coalition partners from the Social Democratic Party, or PSD, which Iliescu founded and has been the most dominant party since the revolution. 'These are just shameful attacks from people who will never live up to the legacy left by the founding leader of the PSD,' Marcel Ciolacu, a former PSD leader and prime minister, said in a post on Facebook, adding that it 'demonstrates only sick hatred and lack of decency.' A notable absence from the funeral was Romania's recently elected President Nicușor Dan, who founded the USR party in 2016, and sent a short statement after the former president's death, stating that 'history will judge Ion Iliescu.' The heated national debate over whether he should be given a national funeral proves that the deep wounds of the post-1989 Romanian society still linger on to this day, as many painful chapters of the last decades are still awaiting their truthful, honest conclusions. Ultimately, after being elected twice as president in two completely different political moments, in the first democratic elections and then in the middle of Romania's efforts to join the EU and NATO, Iliescu remains a much-debated, towering personality for Romanians, but clearly one of the decisive figures of the Romanian state.
Euronews
07-08-2025
- Euronews
Electoral authorities strip Bosnian Serb leader Dodik of presidency
Bosnia's electoral authorities stripped Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik of his presidency Wednesday after a state-level appeals chamber upheld a verdict sentencing him to a six-year ban from politics. The late February ruling by the Sarajevo-based Court of BiH over anti-constitutional conduct triggered a prolonged high-tension political crisis in the Western Balkan country that has since simmered down to a steady boil. However, the heat was back on after the court's appeals chamber confirmed the original verdict against Dodik, who holds the office of president of the Republika Srpska (RS), one of Bosnia and Herzegovina's main administrative units. This meant that the Central Electoral Committee, or CIK, had to open the procedure under electoral law of removing him from office and calling snap elections in the RS to fill the vacated position within 90 days. Dodik, who reacted to Wednesday's decision by stating it was "yet another sh*tshow from Sarajevo", can appeal the electoral body's decision. "There's no surrender or giving up. Surrender is not an option," Dodik said in a post on X. He has vowed to stay on as entity president regardless of CIK's dismissal. Dodik's legal representatives have already announced he will also open a separate case against the original ruling in front of the state-level Constitutional Court. It is unclear how long these processes might take. A general election in Bosnia is set for autumn 2026. Meanwhile, Dodik has attempted to rally all Bosnian Serb political actors to stand behind him in defiance of the court decisions. However, the opposition parties have largely refused to do so so far. The EU's diplomatic service (EEAS) spokesperson said last Friday that the Court of BiH's "verdict is binding and must be respected." "The EU calls on all parties to acknowledge the independence and impartiality of the court, and to respect and uphold its verdict," the statement said. In turn, Dodik has received support from Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova. Months-long pushback Since February, Dodik has repeatedly rejected the verdict of one year in prison and barred him from politics for six years for going against the decisions of the country's international peace envoy, Christian Schmidt, which constitutes a criminal act. In the RS, he introduced new laws meant to ban the operation of state-level security and judicial institutions in what comprises about half of the Western Balkan country's territory. The decisions have been temporarily suspended by the state-level Constitutional Court. "As far as I'm concerned, that verdict doesn't exist, and it is null and void," Dodik told Euronews Serbia in a June interview. Dodik has also continuously questioned the legitimacy of High Representative Schmidt, saying he acted against "imposed decisions" by the envoy whose mandate, Dodik claims, contradicts the Dayton Agreement, signed in 1995 to end the war in the country. The agreement brought about the end of the war between the country's three main ethnic groups — Bosniaks, Serbs and Croats — that began in 1992 during the dissolution of the former Yugoslavia, deemed as the bloodiest conflict on European soil since World War II. The High Representative is meant to act as the chief arbiter in high-profile disputes and the key figure overseeing the implementation of the deal. The peace agreement, parts of which act as the country's constitution, split the country into two main administrative units, or entities: the Serb-majority RS and the Bosniak-Croat Federation of BiH (FBiH), partially overseen by an umbrella state-level government. Meant to appease the former belligerents, it created a complicated system of checks and balances, said to be the world's most complex democracy. Dodik, who has served in various top roles, including the state-level presidency, for decades, has repeatedly called for the independence of the RS from the rest of Bosnia, fuelling fears of instability. He has been placed under US and British sanctions for his actions, but has had the steady support of Moscow. Test of post-war stability Dodik's ongoing challenge to the High Representative and state-level institutions' authority has been deemed to be the EU membership hopeful's biggest test of post-war stability. The Court of BiH issued a nationwide arrest warrant for Dodik in March. Since then, he travelled to neighbouring Serbia, Israel and Russia, where he attended the 9 May Victory Day celebrations in Moscow, organised by Russian President Vladimir Putin. Back home, tensions flared up once again in late April after state-level security agency inspectors tried to arrest Dodik, but were prevented from doing so. While the details around the incident remained unclear, domestic media reported that SIPA agents left after 'talking' to the RS police. Dodik later said he felt 'fine and safe". The crisis over his potential arrest was somewhat defused in July, when Dodik voluntarily came in for questioning at the state-level prosecutor's office, after which the warrant was dropped. According to Bosnian law, Dodik can pay a fine for each day of his one-year prison sentence instead of serving time in jail. The European peacekeeping force in Bosnia, EUFOR, had stepped up the number of its troops in response to the tensions earlier this year. In March, NATO's Secretary General Mark Rutte pledged the military alliance's "unwavering" support for Bosnia's territorial integrity. "Three decades after the Dayton Peace Agreement, I can tell you: NATO remains firmly committed to the stability of this region and to the security of Bosnia and Herzegovina," Rutte said at the time. "We will not allow hard-won peace to be jeopardised."
France 24
03-08-2025
- France 24
Sweida: Clashes rattle civilians as truce frays
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