Latest news with #proEuropean
BBC News
2 days ago
- Politics
- BBC News
The Documentary Podcast Why does Moldova matter to Putin?
Moldova is a country torn between pro-Western and pro-Russian factions. In September this year, Moldovans will vote for a new leadership, and pro-European observers are worried that Russia will try to influence the outcome of these elections. Why? Natasha Matyukhina from BBC Monitoring explains. This episode of The Documentary comes to you from The Fifth Floor, the show at the heart of global storytelling, with BBC journalists from all around the world. Presented by Faranak Amidi Produced by Alice Gioia and Caroline Ferguson (Photo: Faranak Amidi. Credit: Tricia Yourkevich.)
Al Jazeera
7 days ago
- General
- Al Jazeera
Video: Right-wing Polish opposition candidate narrowly wins election
NewsFeed Video: Right-wing Polish opposition candidate narrowly wins election Right-wing opposition candidate Karol Nawrocki has narrowly won Poland's presidential election. Nawrocki's victory is seen as a major blow to the centrist government's pro-European policies.
Al Jazeera
25-05-2025
- Politics
- Al Jazeera
Rival marches draw thousands before pivotal Polish presidential election
Tens of thousands of people have taken to the streets of Warsaw to show support for the opposing candidates in next weekend's tightly contested Polish presidential run-off, which the government views as crucial to its efforts for pro-European democratic reform. Prime Minister Donald Tusk hopes to galvanise support for his candidate, liberal Warsaw Mayor Rafal Trzaskowski, to replace outgoing Andrzej Duda, a nationalist who has vetoed many of Tusk's efforts to reform the judiciary. 'All of Poland is looking at us. All of Europe is looking at us. The whole world is looking at us,' Trzaskowski told supporters who waved Polish and European Union flags on Sunday. Tusk swept to power in 2023 with a broad alliance of leftist and centrist parties on a promise to undo changes made by the nationalist Law and Justice government that the EU said had undermined democracy and women's and minority rights. Trzaskowski beat nationalist opponent Karol Nawrocki by 2 percentage points in the first round of the election on May 18 but is struggling to sustain his lead, according to opinion polls. The two candidates are locked in a tight contest before the June 1 run-off with the latest polls projecting a tie of 47 percent of the vote each. Nawrocki's voters – some wearing hats with the words 'Poland is the most important,' a nod to United States President Donald Trump's America First policies – gathered in a different part of the capital to show support for his drive to align Poland more closely with Trump and the region's populists. 'I am the voice of all those whose cries do not reach Donald Tusk today. The voice of all those who do not want Polish schools to be places of ideology, our Polish agriculture to be destroyed or our freedom taken away,' Nawrocki told the crowd. Some of his supporters carried banners with slogans such as 'Stop Migration Pact' and 'This is Poland' or displayed images of Trump. 'He is the best candidate, the most patriotic, one who can guarantee that Poland is independent and sovereign,' Jan Sulanowski, 42, said. An estimated 50,000 people attended the gathering of Nawrocki's supporters while about 140,000 people participated in the march supporting Trzaskowski, the Polish Press Agency reported, citing unofficial preliminary estimates from city authorities. Jakub Kaszycki, 21, joined the pro-Trzaskowski march, saying it could determine Poland's future direction. 'I very much favour … the West's way to Europe, not to Russia,' he said. At Trzaskowski's march, newly elected Romanian President Nicusor Dan pledged to work closely with Tusk and Trzaskowski 'to ensure Poland and the European Union remain strong'. Dan's unexpected victory in a vote on May 18 over a hard-right Trump supporter was greeted with relief in Brussels and other parts of Europe because many were concerned that his rival George Simion would have complicated EU efforts to tackle Russia's war in Ukraine.
Washington Post
22-05-2025
- Politics
- Washington Post
Romanian court rejects defeated hard-right candidate's challenge to election result
BUCHAREST, Romania — A top Romanian court on Thursday rejected as unfounded a request to annul the presidential election by the hard-right candidate who decisively lost the race to his pro-European Union opponent on Sunday. After deliberations on Thursday, Romania's Constitutional Court unanimously rejected the annulment request, filed on Tuesday by George Simion, in which he alleged that foreign interference and coordinated manipulation affected the vote.
The Guardian
19-05-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
Nicușor Dan, the maths prodigy who beat an ultranationalist for Romanian presidency
Romania's new president, a modest but driven maths prodigy who made a name for himself fighting corrupt property developers in Bucharest before becoming the capital's crusading mayor, is expected to keep his country firmly on its pro-European track. Nicușor Dan won Sunday's rerun against the ultranationalist George Simion by a convincing seven-point margin – despite only entering it after the original vote, won by another far-right firebrand, was cancelled over fears of Russian meddling. Romania was in the most difficult situation it had faced since the fall of communism in 1989, he said then. Fed up with corrupt and ineffective institutions, its citizens needed a 'fundamental change in how the state responds to their expectations'. Whether he will succeed in delivering that change is another question, but analysts say Dan, 55, is determined enough to give it a good try. He appealed passionately on Monday for 'specialists, people in civil society, new people' to join in and help. Born in the central city of Făgăraș, Dan was a brilliant mathematician, winning gold at the International Maths Olympiads in the 1980s. He earned a master's degree from France's prestigious École Normale Supérieure and a PhD from the Sorbonne. Back in Romania, he became deeply involved in civic activism, campaigning effectively against corrupt and illegal high-rise property development in central Bucharest and to preserve the capital's historic buildings and green spaces. As head of his Save Bucharest association, Dan won nearly two dozen high-profile lawsuits against local authorities, significantly raising his public profile and preparing the ground for a run at city hall, which succeeded at the third attempt in 2020. In 2016, aiming to capitalise on the campaigning reputation that brought him second place in that year's mayoral elections with more than 30% of the vote, he co-founded the anti-corruption Save Romania Union (USR) as a national political platform. The new party became the country's third largest in the 2016 general election and Dan was successfully elected an MP. He quit the USR a year later, however, over a row about its policy on a gay marriage referendum proposed by an anti-LGBT association, which proposed that marriage should be 'between a man and a woman' and against which many in USR wanted to campaign. Dan did not feel the party should get involved in the plebiscite, arguing it must maintain its focus on fighting corruption and remain open to both progressives and conservatives, so he left. He has been independent ever since. 'He's a liberal with quite a conservative touch,' said Cristian Preda, a professor of political science at the University of Bucharest, who likened the new president's calm, analytical, methodical approach to that of the former German chancellor Angela Merkel. 'Politically, he's more aligned with a party like Germany's Christian Democrats (CDU) than with the centrist liberals of Renew, which is the European political group the USR belongs to. He'll get on very well with the new chancellor Friedrich Merz.' In a country that sees its political class as corrupt and ineffective, analysts say his relative lack of national political experience played to his advantage, as did his modest lifestyle: he lives in three rented rooms in a run-down district of Bucharest. 'Nicușor Dan has never had any integrity issues or been accused of corruption,' the political analyst Costin Ciobanu told Balkan Insight. 'He is perceived as an honest politician, and he presents himself as an anti-establishment politician.' As an independent two-term mayor, however, Dan has experience in negotiating effective majorities. 'He really got a lot done as mayor,' Preda said. 'He completely renewed the city water pipes, the tramways … He tackles big projects, gets stuck in.' He is not, he admits, 'the greatest of communicators', but says he is learning fast – and his softly-spoken, quietly persuasive style proved highly effective against the more impetuous, Maga-like Simion, whom he demolished in a major TV debate. Dan is unique in Romania, said Claudiu Tufiș, a political scientist, because he 'has not taken the traditional route – he's from civil society. That has certain advantages, but also disadvantages.' Other commentators praise his authenticity and transparency. But while he may advocate profound changes at home, including rooting out corruption and pushing through major fiscal reform, the new president – to the relief of almost all of the EU's leaders – has no plans whatsoever to alter foreign policy. He strongly backs Romania's EU and Nato membership, and has said support for Ukraine is vital for the country's own security against a growing Russian threat.
