Roman­ian far-right politi­cian George Simion has declared Hun­gar­i­an Prime Min­is­ter Vik­tor Orban the “leader of Chris­t­ian civ­i­liza­tion” and “all of Europe” dur­ing a major Cen­tral and East­ern Euro­pean gath­er­ing in Poland. On 7 Sep­tem­ber 2025, Dai­ly News Hun­gary report­ed that Simion, leader of Romania’s nation­al­ist Alliance for the Union of Roma­ni­ans (AUR), made these remarks at the 34th Eco­nom­ic Forum in Karpacz while simul­ta­ne­ous­ly attack­ing Pol­ish Prime Min­is­ter Don­ald Tusk as a “glob­al­ist mer­ce­nary” and “pup­pet of the Euro­pean Commission.”

The arti­cle begins:

At a major Cen­tral and East­ern Euro­pean polit­i­cal and eco­nom­ic gath­er­ing in Poland, Roman­ian far-right politi­cian George Simion described Hun­gar­i­an Prime Min­is­ter Vik­tor Orbán as not only Hungary’s leader but also the head of “Chris­t­ian civil­i­sa­tion” and “all of Europe”. Simion, the leader of Romania’s nation­al­ist Alliance for the Union of Roma­ni­ans (AUR), spoke at the 34th Eco­nom­ic Forum in Karpacz, an event often referred to as the “Davos of the East”.

          Read more: https://dailynewshungary.com/romania-simion-hails-orban-leader-europe/

Key Points

• Simion praised Orban as “the one who pre­serves com­mon sense, pro­tects fam­i­lies, and cre­ates secu­ri­ty” while claim­ing many Hun­gar­i­ans in Roma­nia fol­low him for the continent’s benefit
• The Roman­ian politi­cian brand­ed Tusk “Ursu­la von der Leyen and Berlin’s mar­i­onette” and attacked the EU’s Green Deal as “one of the great­est lies of our time”
• Orbán open­ly endorsed Simion ahead of Romania’s pres­i­den­tial elec­tion, with Simion fea­tur­ing the Hun­gar­i­an PM’s por­trait on cam­paign leaflets despite ulti­mate­ly los­ing to pro-EU can­di­date Dan
• The forum in Karpacz, dubbed the “Davos of the East,” brought togeth­er over 6,000 par­tic­i­pants includ­ing heads of state, gov­ern­ment offi­cials, and busi­ness lead­ers from Sep­tem­ber 2–4

AUR, Global National Conservatism, and the Limits of Illiberal Influence in Romania

The Alliance for the Union of Roma­ni­ans (AUR) has rapid­ly become Romania’s most promi­nent force advo­cat­ing for nation­al con­ser­vatism, lever­ag­ing anti-estab­lish­ment sen­ti­ment and Ortho­dox Chris­t­ian iden­ti­ty to build a coali­tion that rejects much of the Euro­pean Union’s lib­er­al con­sen­sus. This rise coin­cid­ed with how Russ­ian influ­ence oper­a­tions reached unprece­dent­ed sophis­ti­ca­tion in Romania’s 2025 elec­tion, where Krem­lin-linked actors exploit­ed social media and dis­in­for­ma­tion to ampli­fy AUR’s mes­sage and weak­en insti­tu­tion­al trust—mirroring tac­tics seen else­where in Cen­tral and East­ern Europe.

AUR’s rapid growth reflects AUR’s ide­o­log­i­cal foun­da­tions in nation­al con­ser­v­a­tive cir­cles, embed­ding the par­ty in a broad­er transat­lantic net­work of right-wing move­ments that share a hos­til­i­ty toward mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism, cli­mate pol­i­cy, and glob­al gov­er­nance. These ide­o­log­i­cal cur­rents are not unique to Roma­nia; they form part of a coor­di­nat­ed effort by nation­al con­ser­v­a­tive par­ties in Europe and beyond to forge a “glob­al front against lib­er­al­ism,” as evi­denced by recent cross-bor­der alliances and joint polit­i­cal events that empha­size sov­er­eign­ty, tra­di­tion­al val­ues, and resis­tance to what they describe as elite-dri­ven social engineering.

AUR’s emer­gence has also been marked by a dis­tinct envi­ron­men­tal­ism that blends skep­ti­cism of glob­al cli­mate agree­ments with a nativist defense of Romania’s rur­al land­scapes, posi­tion­ing the par­ty as a new vari­ant with­in the Euro­pean far-right. Yet, as in oth­er coun­tries where sim­i­lar move­ments have gained ground, Roman­ian vot­ers ulti­mate­ly demon­strat­ed their capac­i­ty to resist for­eign inter­fer­ence and illib­er­al drift; despite Russ­ian inter­fer­ence, vot­ers deliv­ered a deci­sive pro-EU result, under­scor­ing both the appeal and the lim­its of the Glob­al Nation­al Con­ser­v­a­tive Alliance in a region where demo­c­ra­t­ic insti­tu­tions and civ­il soci­ety remain resilient.

The AUR’s tra­jec­to­ry thus offers a case study in how local griev­ances, transna­tion­al ide­o­log­i­cal net­works, and for­eign inter­fer­ence inter­act in the new Euro­pean polit­i­cal landscape—a dynam­ic that con­tin­ues to evolve as nation­al con­ser­v­a­tives seek to redraw the continent’s polit­i­cal map.

Exter­nal References:
The Alliance for the Union of Roma­ni­ans rep­re­sents a new form of far-right environmentalism
Alliance for the Union of Roma­ni­ans — Wikipedia
“Nation­al con­ser­v­a­tives” are forg­ing a glob­al front against liberalism

Disclaimer

The Glob­al Influ­ence Oper­a­tions Report (GIOR) employs AI through­out the post­ing process, includ­ing gen­er­at­ing sum­maries of news items, the intro­duc­tion, key points, and often the “con­text” sec­tion. We rec­om­mend ver­i­fy­ing all infor­ma­tion before use. Addi­tion­al­ly, images are AI-gen­er­at­ed and intend­ed sole­ly for illus­tra­tive pur­pos­es. While they rep­re­sent the events or indi­vid­u­als dis­cussed, they should not be inter­pret­ed as real-world photography.