“JD Vance! JD Vance!” – at the unauthorized protest of the oppressed sovereignists

First, excerpts from JD Vance's Munich speech were screened at the Bucharest rally held in support of Călin Georgescu, and then the man standing on stage began chanting the name of the American vice president. At first the crowd wasn't quite sure what to make of it, but after a few repetitions some of the participants joined in, and then went on cheering for Georgescu. All this at a protest for which the organizers had not received a permit, but which they were able to hold anyway.

There is something chilling about the way supporters of the Romanian far right chant the name of a man seen as a betrayer of Europe and Ukraine, while their own politicians constantly talk about the country's sovereignty. At Saturday's rally in front of parliament, applause went to an American vice president who traveled to Munich to lecture Europe on democracy at a time when Russia's full-scale war had already been raging for three years right next to Romania, and the new US administration had just begun negotiating with Putin.

At the Munich Security Conference in February 2025, Vance claimed that the greatest threat to Europe is not Russia or China, but what is happening within the continent itself. He criticized the state of freedom of speech and also brought up the annulment of Romania's December 2024 presidential election, which he said had been decided on the basis of weak intelligence suspicions. It is not hard to imagine why the people who gathered to support Georgescu chose this particular speech.

The protest was promoted by AUR, and party leader George Simion also joined it, although he claimed the party was not the organizer of the event. Participants gathered in front of the parliament building, where AUR was holding an international forum during those same days. The demonstration did not receive a permit, and the gendarmerie had previously cited security risks, including the fact that a Romania–Poland football match was being held in Bucharest on the same day. The protest still went ahead, with the authorities providing security on site and imposing traffic restrictions.

This is what oppression looks like in the telling of Romanian sovereignists: they weren't granted a permit for their protest, so they gathered in front of parliament, set up a stage and screens, played the American vice president's speech, and then led a chorus cheering for Georgescu and Vance over a microphone. Meanwhile, they were free to proclaim as much as they liked that they were living in a dictatorship that silences them. If anyone happened to miss their complaints about freedom, the sound system surely helped.

Democratic parties and state institutions also have something to think through here, because the decision surrounding the protest presented a peculiar spectacle. The authorities first refused to authorize the event citing security reasons, and then the participants gathered anyway, and police protection had to be arranged for the protest to take place after all. Protecting peaceful assembly is the state's duty, as is applying its own rules clearly and consistently. If an event is once classified as risky, people would have the right to know exactly why, and what the consequences are if it is held despite that decision — because otherwise Simion and his allies can once again take home what they successfully sell to their audience on other occasions: they got to take the stage as the persecuted, while their voice traveled unimpeded from in front of parliament to the national press. Meanwhile, democratic politicians can only watch as freedom and Christian values are appropriated by those who have the crowd chant the name of an American vice president who routinely vilifies Europe, and then, with the same momentum, tell everyone to go home in the name of national sovereignty.

The repetition of the election and the intelligence reports underlying it can and should be debated, as should the question of why citizens did not receive satisfactory answers to all their questions. But Vance's appearance in Munich carried another message as well, one that resonated just as enthusiastically in Bucharest now. While Russia was attacking Ukraine, the American vice president put European leaders in the pillory and spoke of the continent's internal enemies. And the Romanian pseudo-Christian, pseudo-sovereignist far right found in him the foreign leader whose name allows them to feel oppressed, free, and patriotic all at once.

Ugar