Latest news with #Moscow-funded
Yahoo
09-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Romanian democracy: no place for the 'TikTok messiah' Calin Georgescu
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. "The Romanian state seems to have woken up," said Carmen Dumitrescu in Republica (Bucharest). Last week, the prosecutor general charged the ultranationalist Calin Georgescu on six counts, including lying about his campaign finances and having links to a fascist group. Georgescu, aka the "TikTok messiah", has been the poster boy for right-wing conspiracists ever since his startling victory in the first round of the presidential election last December was annulled on the grounds of Russian interference. Both the US Vice-President J.D. Vance and the tech billionaire Elon Musk claimed Georgescu had been cancelled by Europe's liberal elite on the pretext of nothing more than a handful of Moscow-funded social media ads. And for weeks, the Romanian state, intimidated into silence, did nothing to challenge Vance's version of events, even when Georgescu was caught meeting with mercenary leaders who were reportedly plotting to incite unrest. Now, though, there are signs that the state "is fighting back". Not before time, said Sabina Fati in Deutsche Welle (Bonn). Prosecutors have uncovered a shocking plot against Romanian democracy that goes far beyond a Russian TikTok campaign. A search of the home of Georgescu's bodyguard, Horatiu Potra, uncovered gold bars, assault weapons and ammunition hidden in secret rooms, plus more than $2m hidden under the floor. Potra has close links with Russia's Wagner mercenary group. In addition, another close associate of Georgescu reportedly plotted with a Russian military intelligence officer to "establish patriotic forces" that would "storm" state institutions in the wake of the election annulment. "In other words, Georgescu stands accused of plotting a coup d'état." Yet Musk continues to "shower" him with "messages of solidarity", said Tobias Zick in Tages-Anzeiger (Zürich). Musk tweeted that Georgescu's arrest was "messed up", while reportedly the Trump administration is "putting pressure on Romania behind closed doors to ensure Georgescu is allowed to stand in new elections in May". It's an astonishing intervention in Romanian democracy. Let's just hope the evidence against Georgescu is solid enough to secure a conviction, said Gabriel Bejan on HotNews (Bucharest). Because if the presidential frontrunner has been charged on evidence that's less than cast iron, it will be trotted out by Trump's people at every future meeting with EU leaders. "If this is what European democracy looks like, you have no right to criticise us. You have far bigger problems." That's what they'll say.
The Guardian
16-02-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
The Guardian view on JD Vance in Munich: Europe must stand up for its values
In 2007, Vladimir Putin delivered a speech to the Munich security conference that stunned western diplomats by launching an unforeseen assault on the post-1989 international order. The United States, alleged Mr Putin, had perniciously manufactured a unipolar world 'in which there is one master, one sovereign'. Seven years later, Russian forces illegally occupied Crimea, and Moscow-funded separatists seized swathes of territory in eastern Ukraine, in what turned out to be the precursor to full-blown invasion. Nearly two decades later, the disturbing speech at the same venue by the US vice-president, JD Vance, may prove to be similarly significant as the geopolitics of the 21st century continue to shift. Mr Vance had been expected to concentrate last Friday's remarks on Ukraine, after a week in which Donald Trump appeared to be unilaterally preparing to negotiate a ceasefire deal entirely on Mr Putin's terms. Instead, he used his platform as a pulpit from which to berate the US's European allies on issues such as multiculturalism, migration and the regulation of social media. Indefensibly, the Trump administration now actively cheerleads for far-right parties such as Germany's Alternative für Deutschland, whose leader, Alice Weidel, he chose to meet in Munich. A month into Trump 2.0, Mr Vance and other senior outriders such as Elon Musk are full of ideological hubris and jubilant self-regard. But the vice-president's use of Maga-style culture war rhetoric to attack European governments amounted to more than mere trolling. In deeply ominous fashion it also shredded the idea of a 'west' that shares fundamental values. In the post-cold war era, the transatlantic alliance was founded on a common commitment to international norms that this White House holds in sneering contempt. Mr Trump's brutally transactional approach is infused with a Hobbesian cynicism – witness his determination to exploit Ukraine's vulnerability to seize 50% of its rare earth minerals on favourable terms. Europe must swiftly learn to adapt to an isolationist US that sees it as an ideological adversary and economic competitor. Conflicts and challenging trade-offs are inevitable. Mr Vance's excoriation of 'digital censorship' in Europe is a prelude to future attempts to see off the regulation of US tech companies via the EU Digital Services Act. On security and defence, climate action and the terms of transatlantic trade, European nations will need to find the unity to stand up to 'America-first' bullying tactics, and begin to lay foundations for greater strategic and economic autonomy. This week's crisis meeting on Ukraine in Paris, convened at short notice by the French president, Emmanuel Macron, is a step in the right direction. Amid justified fears of a neo-imperial carve-up, it is imperative to ensure that Europe, along with Ukraine itself, plays a full part in any future negotiations with Mr Putin – all the more so given that the apparent US expectation that it would police the result. Europe was slow to wake up to the implications of a newly rivalrous and multipolar world, in which transatlantic ties would no longer bind in the same way. The new reality will be characterised by Trumpian bluff, bluster and brinkmanship. Following Mr Vance's visit to Munich, leaders can hardly say they have not been warned. The task now is to find ways to safeguard the European model from an increasingly sinister US administration that would love to see it fail.
