General relief in Brussels after the unexpected victory of Nicușor Dan in Romania, against George Simion, his opponent who had led the first round by a wide margin. While the final result is clear, the election remains tainted by an indelible stain: This vote should never have taken place, as the November election was annulled for entirely fictitious and arbitrary reasons. In other words, the most serious electoral scandal in the history of European integration. 

Those who justified this electoral coup by invoking a far-fetched Russian interference via TikTok—without the slightest evidence—no longer dared to repeat their lies when Simion climbed to 40 per cent of the vote in the first round of the second election. That figure alone dismantles the grotesque and ridiculous pretext on which a presidential vote was simply annulled. Dan’s presidency will therefore remain marked by an original sin: Had the Romanians’ initial vote been respected, he would never have become president—and Călin Georgescu would likely be in his place. 

Some point to foreign interference, and Pavel Durov, CEO of Telegram, denounced pressure from French intelligence to censor certain voices—and is ready to repeat this claim before a judge. Some accuse the EU, without providing evidence, of having directly orchestrated the manoeuvre, which seems unlikely. What is indisputable, however, is that it tolerated this blatant democratic breach with deafening silence and bombproof cynicism. While Brussels relentlessly targeted the Georgian government over elections won by a 14-point margin, it uttered not a word—not a single statement—about an electoral coup in one of its own Member States. In a final display of bad faith, the Commission launched a monitoring procedure against TikTok under the Digital Services Act.