BUCHAREST, Jan 21 (Reuters) – Romania’s hard-right opposition party the Alliance for Uniting Romanians is towering over the four parties of the pro-European coalition government in popular support, an opinion poll showed on Wednesday, although no election is due until 2028.
AUR, the second-largest party in the country, led surveys throughout 2025 despite its leader George Simion ultimately losing a presidential election re-run last May.
The party opposes extending military aid to neighbouring Ukraine, is critical of the European Union’s leadership and supportive of U.S. President Donald Trump’s policies including on energy and immigration. Romania is a member of both the EU and NATO.
The latest survey, conducted by pollster INSCOP, showed that 40.9% of Romanians would vote for AUR, the highest level of support for a hard-right party in more than three decades.
The leftist Social Democrats (PSD), currently parliament’s biggest party and a member of the ruling coalition, ranked a distant second with 18.2%.
The Liberal Party of Prime Minister Ilie Bolojan had 13.5% support. The other two ruling parties – the centre-right Save Romania Union (USR) and the ethnic Hungarian party UDMR – polled at 11.7% and 4.9%, respectively.
Romania’s next general election is due in 2028.
The survey was conducted from January 12 to 15 and has a margin of error of 3.0%.
Romania re-ran a presidential election last year after it cancelled the original ballot in December 2024 on suspicion of Russian interference in favour of far-right frontrunner Calin Georgescu.
The cancelled vote plunged the country into its worst political crisis in decades, exposing its deep vulnerability to hybrid attacks and disinformation, dividing voters, crashing markets and threatening the country’s investment-grade rating.
The broad coalition government which came to power after the subsequent ballot raised taxes and cut some state spending to help narrow the widest budget deficit gap in the EU.
While the measures helped keep Romania on the last rung of investment grade and unlocked EU funds, with the budget deficit expected to narrow to around 6% of economic output this year from more than 9% in 2024, they have also triggered protests and fuelled support for the opposition.
BUCHAREST, Dec 15 (Reuters) – Romania’s broad coalition government survived a no-confidence vote on Monday over a second attempt to raise the retirement age for judges and prosecutors and cap their pensions, but the top court could still strike down the bill later this month.
The Constitutional Court rejected an earlier version of the bill in October.
A second failure could weaken the fragile four-party coalition, which took office six months ago and wants to reform judicial pensions to meet conditions for accessing European Union recovery and resilience funds.
COALITION STRUGGLES TO AGREE CUTS
The government plans to gradually raise the retirement age for judges and prosecutors to 65 from about 50 over 15 years and cap pensions at 70% of final salary. Judicial pensions can reach 5,000 euros ($5,830) per month, compared with an average Romanian pension of around 600 euros.
The court, which has a history of blocking pension cuts, will rule on the latest challenge on December 28.
The coalition has now survived six no-confidence votes since taking power, mostly over tax hikes and spending cuts aimed at reducing the EU’s largest budget deficit and preserving Romania’s investment-grade rating.
But with the 2026 budget plan delayed until end-January, the ruling parties are struggling to agree further cuts.
The leftist Social Democrats, the largest party and key to maintaining a pro-European majority, have threatened to quit unless Liberal Prime Minister Ilie Bolojan agrees to raise the minimum wage next year.
They have also demanded the dismissal of Environment Minister Diana Buzoianu over a water supply shortage earlier this month. Buzoianu, from the junior centre-right Save Romania Union, is reforming the ministry’s forestry and water agencies, long seen as politicised.
The no-confidence motion over judicial pension reform comes amid street protests after hundreds of judges and prosecutors alleged systemic abuses in the justice system.
If you want to see what a “living constitution” looks like, go to Europe. On Tuesday, in Vainik v. Estonia, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that four longtime prisoners in Estonia were due restitution from the state for “weight gain, sleeping problems, depression, and anxiety” caused by not being allowed to smoke in prison.
The decision was grounded on Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The text of Article 8 doesn’t mention any right to enjoy a cigarette whenever one pleases. Rather, it protects a broad “right to private life,” which the court accused Estonia of violating in the Vainik case. “The Court,” the judges wrote, “was sensitive to the context of the already limited personal autonomy of prisoners, and that the freedom for them to decide for themselves—such as whether to smoke—was all the more precious.” An odd ruling, but perhaps Europe loves its cigarettes that much?
After signing the deal, Prime Minister Ilie Bolojan hailed the joint venture between the Romanian state and Europe’s largest arms producer as a sign that Romania is “emerging as a player with potential in the defense industry of Southeast Europe.”
Construction of the 535 million-euro ($616 million) plant in the town of Victoria in Brasov County is expected to start in 2026, take three years to complete and create about 700 local jobs, he said. Romania will seek to finance part of its contributions through the European SAFE mechanism to encourage defense readiness.
“After many years in which our defense industry was in little demand, Romania is entering a new stage because of the security situation in Eastern Europe,” Bolojan said. “I’m glad Rheinmetall sees us as an important and serious partner and is strengthening its presence in Romania.”
Rheinmetall CEO Armin Papperger said the ammunition powder to be produced at the factory is “needed worldwide and especially in Europe,” and will make Romania a key player in the continent’s defense ecosystem.
“The strategy is to make Romania an integral part of the European ecosystem,” Papperger said. “Romania will also be an integral part of the NATO ecosystem.”
Since Russia launched its full invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Romania has played an increasingly prominent role in NATO. It has donated a Patriot missile system to Ukraine and opened an international training hub for F-16 jet pilots from allied countries, including Ukraine.
The German arms maker and the Romanian defense company signed a deal Monday to form a joint venture, with Rheinmetall holding 51% and Pirochim owning the remainder, Rheinmetall said.
Romania’s National Office for Gambling (ONJN) has announced that Polymarket, the current biggest prediction market, will be placed on its blacklist for unauthorized websites due to its continued gambling operations without a license.
ONJN President Vlad-Cristian Soare made the following statement:
“The decision to include Polymarket on the blacklist is not related to technology, but to the law.”
He has also stated that if you are betting on a future result with money, then it needs to be regulated, regardless of whether it’s with lei or crypto.
Soare has also gone on to state that the ONJN will not let the blockchain become a tool for illegal betting.
Defining the Difference
While Polymarket has been described as an “event trading platform”, due to the ability it grants for people to make bets against one another using funds to make predictions, the ONJN has described it as a tool for counterparty betting.
The ONJN made the following statement:
“Accepting the idea that a ‘counterparty betting’ system can be called ‘trading’ would create a dangerous precedent.”
The regulator has warned that if this is allowed, others could bypass gambling or capital market regulations by claiming that counterparty betting is actually the same as exchanging stocks.
Betting on Elections
The regulator has brought forth the recent prediction on Bucharest’s new Mayor as an example of the effect Polymarket has had on elections in Romania.
The prize pool of said prediction has been noted to have crossed over $16 million
The prediction has yet to reach its conclusion.
One of the electoral predictions in Romania earlier this year has been noted to have hit a volume of over $370 million.
Bans Worldwide
Romania isn’t the first country that has taken action against Polymarket.
It had been temporarily banned in the US, due to a CFTC fine; however, following the acquisition of QCX, a holder of a Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) license, through which Polymarket will be able to resume operations.
Last year, France revealed plans to ban Polymarket following an investigation into their legal compliance after the $35 billion volume reached during the presidential election.
It’s a safe bet that most Americans won’t notice if the U.S. pulls an Army brigade out of Romania, but you can bet
Vladimir Putin will. Behind a reshuffling of U.S. forces abroad is a larger debate within the Trump Administration about America’s posture in the world, and senior Republicans in Congress are expressing alarm.
The U.S. Army confirmed last week that soldiers from a brigade combat team of the 101st Airborne Division will return to Kentucky “without replacement.” Romania’s defense ministry called the decision “an effect of the new priorities of the presidential administration”—that is, the Trump Pentagon. About 1,000 troops will remain in the country, and the U.S. footprint in Romania is a small share of the roughly 85,000 troops on the continent.
NATO and some of America’s allies in the transatlantic alliance have sought to ease concerns over the Trump administration’s move to reduce the U.S. military’s presence in Europe amid Russia’s ongoing assault on Ukraine and as it’s accused of ramping up hybrid warfare against NATO nations.
The Pentagon announced Thursday that it was reducing the number of U.S. troops deployed in eastern Europe. U.S. officials told CBS News that around 700 U.S. airborne troops who have been deployed in Germany, Romania and Poland would come home and not be replaced.
In a statement, the U.S. Army Europe and Africa said it was part of Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s “deliberate process to ensure a balanced U.S. military force posture,” and “not an American withdrawal from Europe or a signal of lessened commitment to NATO and Article 5. Rather this is a positive sign of increased European capability and responsibility.”
U.S. soldiers operate pusher vessels and a transportation barge on the Danube river, during Saber Guardian 25 military exercises in Frecatei, eastern Romania, June 13, 2025.
DANIEL MIHAILESCU/AFP/Getty
“Our NATO allies are meeting President Trump’s call to take primary responsibility for the conventional defense of Europe,” the Army said. “This force posture adjustment will not change the security environment in Europe.”
NATO and allies stress “U.S.’s continued commitment” to Europe
On Thursday, appearing keen to ease such concerns, Estonian Minister of Defense Hanno Pevkur said in a statement that the U.S. had “made a significant decision to maintain its military presence in Estonia, reaffirming the U.S.’s continued commitment to the defense of the region and NATO’s entire eastern flank.”
“We are working to further strengthen the U.S. military presence in our region,” he added.
In September, Estonia said Russian military jets had violated the country’s airspace for 12 minutes, just days after Poland said more than 20 Russian drones entered its airspace. This week, Lithuania closed its border with Russia’s close ally Belarus, after accusing both countries of a “deliberate escalation of hybrid warfare.”
NATO says deterrence measures along its eastern flank have been “massively reinforced” over the last decade “as a direct result of Russia’s behavior.” That boundary runs from the Arctic Sea in the north to the Black Sea in the south.
A map shows in dark blue the European nations which, along with the United States and Canada, are members of the transatlantic NATO defense alliance.
brichuas/Getty
The reinforcements include U.S. troops, but the Trump administration has pushed its European NATO allies hard to take more responsibility — and bear more of the financial burden — for their own security, announcing earlier this year that it would make the Indo-Pacific a primary foreign policy focus, rather than Europe, despite the ongoing war in Ukraine.
“The decision was expected,” Romania’s Ministry of Defense said in a statement Wednesday, referring to the announcement of the U.S. troop reduction.
U.S. Ambassador to NATO Matthew Whitaker said in a social media post that America’s partnership with Romania “remains stronger than ever,” and reiterated the Pentagon’s message that it was in response to European forces’ increased capacities.
The reassurances have not quelled debate about whether the move could be just the beginning of a wider U.S. withdrawal from Europe. The Ukrainian newspaper Kyiv Post reported Friday that further American troop reductions are expected, with troops to be pulled from Bulgaria, Slovakia and Hungary by the end of the year.
There was no immediate public response to the report from the Pentagon or the Trump administration.
NATO has also sought to ease concerns, with a senior military official from the alliance telling CBS News on Thursday that, “even with this adjustment, the U.S. force posture in Europe remains larger than it has been for many years.”
“U.S. commitment to NATO is clear,” the official said. “President Trump and his administration have reiterated this time and again. NATO has robust defense plans in place and we are working to ensure we maintain the right forces and capabilities in place to deter and defend each other.”
Concern in Washington, from both sides of the aisle
The announcement drew bipartisan criticism in Washington, with some senior lawmakers warning it could embolden Russia and undermine the NATO alliance.
In a joint statement issued Thursday by the U.S. House Armed Services Committee, the chairmen of that committee and the corresponding Senate body — both Republicans — said they strongly opposed the change in the U.S. deployment in Romania, which they said “appears uncoordinated and directly at odds with the President’s strategy.”
Senator Roger Wicker and Representative Mike Rogers, in the statement, also indicated that they believed the Pentagon could make further reductions to the U.S. deployment in Europe.
“We strongly oppose the decision not to maintain the rotational U.S. brigade in Romania and the Pentagon’s process for its ongoing force posture review that may result in further drawdowns of U.S. forces from Eastern Europe,” said the Republican lawmakers.
“On March 19, we stated that we will not accept significant changes to our warfighting structure that are made without a rigorous interagency process, coordination with combatant commanders and the Joint Staff, and collaboration with Congress,” said Wicker and Rogers. “Unfortunately, this appears to be exactly what is being attempted.”
On Thursday, Rep. Mike Turner, also a Republican and the head of the U.S. delegation to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, said he was “concerned by reports of reductions of US forces in Romania.”
“Congress has been clear that US force posture across Europe must remain robust and resolute. Russia’s aggressive actions against Eastern Flank countries through intentional airspace incursions underscores Russia’s ambition beyond Ukraine,” said Turner. “It is in our national security interests to support our NATO Allies as they rightly ramp up their investments in their defense capabilities.”
Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, called the decision to reduce the U.S. presence in the region “deeply misguided” in a statement released Thursday.
“This decision sends exactly the wrong signal to Vladimir Putin as he continues his murderous campaign in Ukraine and tests NATO resolve through provocations against other frontline states,” she said.
BUCHAREST (Reuters) -Horatiu Potra, an associate of former Romanian presidential candidate Calin Georgescu, will voluntarily return to Romania from Dubai to face trial on national security charges, his lawyer said on Thursday.
The European Union and NATO state cancelled its presidential election last December due to suspected Russian interference in favour of Georgescu, a strong critic of NATO, Brussels and Western support for Ukraine. Moscow denied the allegations of meddling in the election.
In September, Romanian prosecutors indicted him and Potra alongside 20 other people for conspiring to stage violent protests after the election was cancelled.
Potra, a former French Foreign Legion soldier, has been under criminal investigation this year and evaded arrest by flying to Dubai. Romanian prosecutors sought his extradition and said they believed he was trying to seek asylum in Russia.
Lawyer Christiana Mondea told local television station Digi 24 that Potra had informed her he wished to return to Romania to face trial alongside his son and nephew who were also indicted.
“They will return soon, we don’t know the exact date yet,” Mondea said. “They had wanted to return for a long time but they had to follow procedure.”
Britain’s Guardian newspaper on Wednesday quoted the head of the Russian Middle East Society as saying he was trying to stop Potra’s extradition.
“I can confirm there is no Russian involvement in this story about Dubai, Romania, extradition, criminal trial,” Mondea said.
Romania’s presidential election was re-run in May and won by pro-European centrist Nicusor Dan.
Georgescu was banned from standing again and placed under investigation in two cases. He and Potra have denied wrongdoing.
During raids on Potra’s home in February prosecutors found a large cache of weapons including grenade launchers and hidden cash.
BUCHAREST (Reuters) -Romania and NATO allies were notified of U.S. plans to cut the number of troops stationed on Europe’s eastern flank including soldiers who were to be stationed at Romania’s Mihail Kogalniceanu air base, Romania’s defence ministry said on Wednesday.
Washington’s European allies have been told previously by the administration of President Donald Trump that they will need to take more responsibility for their own security as the United States focuses more on its own borders and the Indo-Pacific region.
“The American decision is to stop the rotation in Europe of a brigade that had elements in several NATO countries,” the defence ministry said.
It said the decision was expected given changes in Washington’s priorities, but that roughly 1,000 U.S. troops will continue to be stationed in Romania.
“The decision also took into account that NATO has consolidated its presence and activity on the eastern flank which enables the United States to adjust its military posture in the region,” the ministry said. It did not specify how many U.S. troops will be withdrawn.
There was no immediate comment from NATO.
Despite worries on NATO’s eastern flank about the potential scaling back of the United States’ presence in the region at a time when Russia continues to wage war in Ukraine, Trump said in September that Washington could increase its troop presence in Poland.
By Marwa Rashad, Kate Abnett and Nerijus Adomaitis
(Reuters) -European nations, including France, are among the staunchest supporters of Ukraine in its fight against Russia. Several have also stepped up their imports of Russian energy which pump billions of euros into Moscow’s wartime economy.
Well into the fourth year of Russia’s war against Ukraine, the European Union remains in the precarious position of financing both sides in the conflict. Its large deliveries of military and humanitarian aid to Kyiv are countered by commercial payments to Moscow for oil and gas.
The bloc has reduced its reliance on once-dominant supplier Russia by roughly 90% since 2022. It nonetheless imported more than 11 billion euros of Russian energy in the first eight months of this year, according to a Reuters analysis of data from the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA), an independent research organization based in Helsinki.
Seven of the EU’s 27 member countries increased the value of their imports versus a year earlier, including five countries that support Ukraine in the war. France, for example, saw purchases of Russian energy rise 40% to 2.2 billion euros while the Netherlands jumped 72% to 498 million euros, the analysis shows.
While LNG ports in countries like France and Spain serve as entry points for Russian supplies into Europe, the gas is often not consumed in those countries but instead sent onwards to buyers across the bloc.
Vaibhav Raghunandan, EU-Russia specialist at CREA, described increased flows as “a form of self-sabotage” by some countries, given energy sales are the biggest source of revenue for Russia as it wages war against an European-backed Ukraine.
“The Kremlin is quite literally getting funding to continue to deploy their armed forces in Ukraine,” he said.
TRUMP SLAMMED EUROPE’S LEADERS
EU energy payments to Moscow have come under renewed scrutiny after U.S. President Donald Trump dressed down European leaders in his speech to the U.N General Assembly last month, demanding they cease all such purchases immediately.
“Europe has to step it up,” Trump said. “They can’t be doing what they’re doing. They’re buying oil and gas from Russia while they’re fighting Russia. It’s embarrassing to them, and it was very embarrassing to them when I found out about it.”
The French energy ministry told Reuters that France’s value of Russian energy imports rose this year as it served customers in other countries, without naming countries or companies. Gas market data suggest part of France’s Russian imports are sent onwards to Germany, according to Kpler analysts.
The Dutch government said while it supported EU plans to phase out Russian energy, until these proposals are fixed into EU law, it was powerless to block existing contracts between European energy companies and Russian suppliers.
The EU, which has already barred most purchases of Russian crude oil and fuel, has announced plans to speed up a ban on Russian liquefied natural gas (LNG) to 2027, from 2028. LNG now represents the biggest EU import of Russian energy, accounting for almost half the value of total purchases, the data shows.
The European Commission declined to comment on the 2025 imports data. The bloc’s energy chief said last month the phased retreat from Russian fossil fuels was designed to ensure member countries don’t face energy price spikes or supply shortages.
The proposals, which envisage a total ban on all Russian oil and gas from 2028, mean European cash could be supporting the Kremlin’s war effort for a year or more to come.
Trump says U.S. oil and gas could replace lost Russian supplies, and many analysts say such a switch is possible, though it would boost Europe’s dependency on U.S. energy in an era when Washington is using tariffs as a policy tool.
“The EU has agreed to buy more energy from the U.S to accommodate the very strong U.S. demands to stop Russian imports,” said Anne-Sophie Corbeau, a research scholar at Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy. “However, it is an illusion to think that U.S. LNG would replace Russian LNG on a one-to-one basis. U.S. LNG is in the hands of private companies, which do not obey orders from the White House and the European Commission, they optimize their portfolios.”
HUNGARY, BELGIUM AND OTHERS SEE BILLS RISE
The EU has come a long way since 2021.
In that year, before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the bloc imported more than 133 billion euros of Russian energy, according to CREA data.
In January-August this year, the EU’s bill amounted to 11.4 billion euros – a fraction of per-war levels and a decline of 21% from the same period of 2024, the figures show.
Hungary and Slovakia – which maintain close ties with the Kremlin and reject any notion of renouncing Russian gas – remain major importers, together accounting for 5 billion euros of that total. They wouldn’t be affected by the planned EU sanctions on LNG, which requires the unanimous backing of member states, as they could still receive Russian pipeline gas until 2028.
Hungary was among the seven countries to see the value of Russian energy imports rise this year, by 11%, according to the data. France and the Netherlands are joined by four other countries whose governments support Ukraine in the war: Belgium, which saw a 3% increase, Croatia (55%), Romania (57%) and Portugal (167%).
Belgium’s energy ministry said the country’s increase was down to separate EU sanctions that took effect in March and banned “transshipments”, or re-exporting, of Russian LNG to outside the bloc, meaning arriving LNG had to be unloaded in Belgium – a global hub – rather than being transferred from ship to ship to be transported onwards to a final destination.
Portugal’s energy ministry said the country only imported modest amounts of Russian gas and that flows over the course of the year would be lower than 2024. The Croatian and Romanian governments didn’t respond to requests for comment on the data.
The European Union’s total imports of Russian energy since 2022, when Russia invaded Ukraine, have amounted to more than 213 billion euros, the CREA data shows.
That dwarfs the amount the EU has spent on aid to Ukraine in the same period, even though it has been the country’s biggest benefactor: the bloc has allocated 167 billion euros of financial, military and humanitarian assistance to Kyiv, according to the Kiel Institute, a German economic think-tank.
ENERGY FIRMS STICK TO LONG-TERM CONTRACTS
France’s TotalEnergies is among the biggest importers of Russian LNG into Europe, with other major players including Shell, Spain’s Naturgy, Germany’s SEFE, and trading house Gunvor. They all operate long-term contracts that last into the 2030s or 2040s.
TotalEnergies told Reuters it was continuing deliveries from Russia’s Yamal plant under contracts that could not be suspended without official EU sanctions in place. The company will maintain supplies as long as European governments deem Russian gas necessary for energy security, it added.
Shell, Naturgy and Gunvor declined to comment on Russian imports.
Ronald Pinto, gas research principal analyst at Kpler said companies were reluctant to risk incurring fines from breaching contractual commitments without the solid legal cover of an EU ban on Russian LNG.
“In the end, market players are buying this LNG, not countries, and for the most part, they are sticking to their long-term contracts,” he added.
Pinto said flow dynamics studies suggested French imports of Russian LNG often flowed via pipeline to Belgium to then reach Germany, where there’s strong demand from industrial users. He cautioned it was “impossible to track exactly the movement of gas molecules within the European gas grid”.
A spokesperson for SEFE, which operates 10% of Germany’s gas transmission network, confirmed that the company imports Russian gas via France and Belgium.
The German economy ministry told Reuters that it welcomed EU efforts to phase out imports of Russian fossil fuels, but that SEFE was bound by a long-standing contract to buy LNG from Russia’s Yamal plant with no option to terminate the agreement.
“Under the contract’s take-or-pay terms, SEFE would have to pay for the agreed quantities, even if no delivery was taken,” a ministry spokesperson said. “Non-acceptance would enable Yamal to resell these quantities, which would then provide double support to the Russian economy.”
(Reporting by Marwa Rashad in London, Kate Abnett in Brussels and Nerijus Adomaitis in Oslo; Additional reporting by America Hernandez in Paris, Francesca Landini in Milan, Christoph Steitz and Vera Eckert in Frankfurt, Shadia Nasralla in London, Pietro Lombardi in Madrid and Andrey Khalip in Lisbon; Editing by Dmitry Zhdannikov and Pravin Char)
BUCHAREST (Reuters) -Romania’s top court on Wednesday rejected two challenges brought against measures to lower the budget deficit but said it would postpone a decision on two others, prolonging uncertainty over the stability of the broad coalition government.
The measures, which the government fast-tracked through parliament, are part of wider efforts aimed at bringing down the fiscal shortfall towards 6% of economic output next year from more than 9% last year.
The measures, with an overall budget impact of roughly 10.6 billion lei ($2.42 billion), were broken down into five bills to avoid having the court strike all of them down. The court initially met on September 24 before postponing a ruling on four of the five bills to October 8.
COURT POSTPONES RULINGS ON JUDGES’ PENSIONS, OTHER MEASURES
On Wednesday, the court rejected challenges to bills on corporate governance of public enterprises and on healthcare, saying they were in line with the constitution. It again postponed ruling on two of the bills until October 20.
These include the most eagerly awaited ruling on judges’ pensions. The government wants to gradually raise the retirement age for judges and prosecutors to the standard 65 from an average now of 48-49, while capping their pension at no more than 70% of their final salary.
The top court has struck down previous attempts to change judicial pensions.
Other measures include job cuts and remuneration caps for state companies, as well as higher property and vehicle taxes, among other increases.
Liberal Prime Minister Ilie Bolojan has said his government would lack legitimacy should the top court strike down the measures, although he later said he was focused on governing rather than considering his resignation.
Centrist President Nicusor Dan has dismissed concerns over a potential strikedown of measures capping pensions for judges and magistrates, saying the government could draft a new law taking the top court’s arguments into account.
(Reporting by Anna Wlodarczak-Semczuk and Luiza IlieEditing by Gareth Jones)
As conservative activist Erika Kirk publicly mourned her husband Charlie Kirk, social media users targeted her work on a Romanian charity project.
“Did ya’ll know Erika Kirk is banned from Romania because her Evangelical group was accused of trafficking children out of Romanian villages?” one self-described “leftist” X user wrote Sept. 23.
Another post from an X user whose bio encouraged people to “vote blue” said, “Erika Kirk is banned from Romania due to sex trafficking allegations — Just saying…”
A PolitiFact reader also texted us to ask if a charity Kirk ran was “accused of child trafficking in Romania.”
Kirk, whose maiden name is Frantzve, founded the nonprofit organization Everyday Heroes Like You, which aimed to assist other charities. That work included an international Romanian Angels project that teamed up with the U.S. Marine Corps to sponsor a Romanian orphanage, Kirk once told Arizona Foothills Magazine.
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What’s the evidence for these claims? There isn’t any.
Some posts repeated the baseless narrative without giving any hint about where it originated.
One of the earliest posts we found, dated Sept. 16, said Kirk’s organization had links to missing Romanian children and trafficking and included screenshots of two articles.
The first, a 2001 report from the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, was about a Romanian investigation into Israeli adoption agencies and an international conspiracy to sell children’s organs for transplants. The report did not mention Kirk, Romanian Angels or Everyday Heroes Like You. Kirk was about 13 years old when that news report was published.
The second was a 2023 article from Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, a media organization founded by the U.S. that reports internationally, including in Romania. It detailed the stories of Romanian children, now adults, who were adopted internationally and who’ve sought information on their Romanian birth families — including some people who concluded they were trafficked as children. This report also did not mention Kirk, Romanian Angels or Everyday Heroes Like You.
Another Sept. 18 post included a screenshot of a Jan. 23, 2022, BBC video titled, “Sex trafficking: Children groomed in Romania sent to UK.” The nine-minute BBC piece focused on young Romanian girls who it reported were groomed in Romania to be trafficked to the United Kingdom. It didn’t mention Kirk or either of her organizations.
Both X posts also contained a low-resolution image with a Romanian Angels banner that encouraged people to “join the movement.” Using a reverse image search, we found a higher resolution version of what looks like a flier with details for a fundraiser organized by Everyday Heroes Like You. The flier, other documents, and Kirk’s socialmediaposts show her traveling to Romania and discussing the project from 2012 to 2014.
The flier says people can “change the life of a Romanian orphan this holiday season” by “adopting” a child, which involved selecting their name from a list, purchasing their “wish list item,” and then bringing it to pack as a gift that would be sent to Orphanage Antonio in Constanta, Romania. An archived version of Everyday Heroes Like You’s website says the project involved a partnership with U.S. service members and United Hands Romania.
We contacted the U.S. Marine Corps and U.S. Army to ask about the partnerships and did not hear back. We also contacted United Hands Romania and received no response.
We emailed press contacts at Romania’s Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Romanian Police, the General Inspectorate of Border Police and the National Agency Against Trafficking in Persons. We received no response.
The news organization Lead Stories said its Romanian staff reviewed media reports and court records and found only positive mentions of work by Romanian Angels and Everyday Heroes Like You.
“Romanian media reported Erika Kirk’s ‘Everyday Heroes like You’ made donations in the form of gifts to Antonio Placement Center in Constanța, as well as to the local hospital, between 2011 and 2015,” Lead Stories reported. “There is no evidence that the ministries were involved in actual international adoptions. A local newspaper article documented the gift donations to the orphans.”
We also searched using the Nexis news database for reports about Kirk being banned from Romania and found none.
We rate the claim that “Erika Kirk is banned from Romania because her Evangelical group was accused of trafficking children out of Romanian villages” False.
PolitiFact Researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this report.
Editor’s note: Google translations of Romanian government websites were used when reporting this article.
Some of the Central European countries, including Hungary, Romania and Slovenia, have seen their economic prospects sour as trade tariffs bite and Chinese competition increases, squeezing their exports.
This is according to the latest outlook from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD).
Growth in the 43 countries where the EBRD invests picked up from 2.8% in 2024 to 3.3% in the first half of 2025.
After a stronger-than-expected first half of 2025, the organisation forecasts a significant slowdown in growth in the second half of the year across its regions. These include Central Asia, the Southern and Eastern Mediterranean, as well as South-Eastern Europe, Central Europe and the Baltic states. The current outlook excludes recently joined regions such as sub-Saharan Africa and Iraq.
The main risks hampering growth include continued trade tensions and weakening global demand. However, the EBRD expects growth to pick up again in 2026. According to its Regional Economic Prospects report, output is expected to grow by 3.1% this year before accelerating to 3.3% in 2026.
Compared to its previous outlook, this translates to slightly better growth for 2025, and slightly worse for 2026.
Countries where the EBRD has largely cut its forecast, compared to the one released in May 2025, include mostly its EU members in Central Europe and the Baltic states.
Slovenia’s growth outlook was sharply cut by 1.2% this year, with its economy expected to expand by 0.7%. The country saw a huge decline in its exports to the US in the first half of the year, amounting to 1% of GDP.
Hungary saw its prospects revised downward by 1%, with 0.5% growth predicted this year. Investments in the country have been lagging partially due to frozen European funds. This has been coupled with higher financing costs. Hungary’s output has also been affected by weakness coming from Germany, where the manufacturing sector suffered a sharper contraction than previously estimated, says the report.
Latvia and Estonia also saw a downward revision, 0.9% and 0.8% respectively.
The nine countries comprising the region of Central Europe and the Baltic states are expected to experience growth of 2.4% in 2025 and 2.7% in 2026.
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These countries have limited growth in the cards, because of weaker-than-expected external demand, budgetary cuts and higher US tariffs hurting their trade. These impacts could be partly offset by higher infrastructure investment, according to the EBRD report.
European EBRD countries with better prospects include Poland, whose forecast has been revised upward by 0.2%, expecting 2.5% growth this year. And Lithuania’s outlook for 2026 has also been revised upward by 0.6%.
Referring to these two countries, EBRD Chief Economist Beata Javorcik said: “You see that countries that did well are countries that are diversified, larger economies like Poland, so less dependent on exports, countries that invested a lot, particularly public investment.”
Poland’s prospects were boosted by its infrastructure investments, including energy transition projects, as well as rail and defence-related works.
Elsewhere, in Eastern Europe and the Caucasus, Ukraine’s outlook was cut by 0.8% to 2.5% growth this year, due to the impact of ongoing Russian aggression and weak harvests.
Meanwhile, growth forecasts in the South-Eastern EU, including in Bulgaria, Greece and Romania, were cut by 0.3% this year and 0.5% for 2026. Lower exports are being balanced with stronger investment in the region, where Romania is in the weakest position.
The country “will need to fully leverage EU funds to stimulate growth,” said the EBRD report. The bank is expecting an average GDP growth of 1.7% in 2025 and 1.9% in 2026 for the three countries in the South-Eastern EU.
Trade tensions are one of the pressure points for the regions and notably for the European countries, according to the report.
Nearly all EU exports to the US face a 15% tariff as of the end of August 2025. This gave some economies a short-term frontloading boost in the first half of the year, but in the long run, the duties are expected to hurt output.
“The impact of tariffs is yet to materialise,” Javorcik said.
Meanwhile, European countries are also facing the long-term risk of an increasingly tight trade competition with China.
“China accounts for a quarter of global exports, and it exports more than Germany and the US combined,” said Javorcik. She added that “China and our countries tend to export similar products,” meaning that the country is “slowly becoming a competitor to advanced European countries”.
Over the past decade, China has increased its exports of cars and batteries, goods which also constitute important shares of exports for some economies in EBRD regions.
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However, European EBRD countries could also make gains in key export markets, particularly where the US wants to cut dependence on Chinese suppliers.
Meanwhile, fiscal vulnerabilities are also among the risks EBRD countries face in the next two years. A number of economies are shouldering the burden of high costs to service their debts. For European countries such as Hungary, the cost is around 4% of GDP; for Poland and Romania, it amounts to over 2% in 2025.
“The US trade policy may be a threat, but it may also be an opportunity,” explained Javorcik.
She said that while higher US tariffs could hurt European countries’ exports, it also presents an opportunity for Eastern European countries “to export products that previously came from China and which, due to much higher tariffs, have therefore become less competitive”, she said.
The chief economist also highlighted the potential benefits of Chinese investments in European countries.
“If you go back to the Draghi report published a year ago, the Draghi report was suggesting bringing Chinese investment, FDI, in car manufacturing and forcing technology transfer to European companies,” she said.
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Meanwhile, in Europe, many see defence spending as a way to boost GDP, but whether increased defence spending could really fuel growth depends on three factors, according to Javorcik.
She suggested that spending on infrastructure is a key move.
“If you devote a good chunk of defence spending, not to core defence, but to everything else that is needed — infrastructure, energy security, IT security — these benefit the private sector and therefore stimulate growth.”
“The second choice you have is how much you import versus buy locally,” she continued, adding that the third most important thing is to invest in “developing the best defence system of tomorrow”, instead of the best defence systems of today.
“The higher the investment in R&D spending, the greater the stimulus for future economic growth,” the EBRD chief economist concluded.
A Romanian tourist spent nearly a month in prison after police mistook him for a wanted criminal on the first day of his holiday in Italy, his lawyer said on Friday.
“The nightmare is over,” Ovidiu A. said as he left Pordenone prison in northern Italy on Thursday, local newspaper Corriere del Veneto reported.
“He was finally able to reunite with his family,” who had been waiting for him since August 24, the day of his arrest, his lawyer Stefano De Rosa told AFP.
Originally from Iasi, Romania, Ovidiu A. had come to spend a few days with his family in Caorle, near Venice.
He would soon find out he shares a name with a wanted Romanian criminal, previously sentenced to two years in prison in Italy for aggravated theft.
The name, registered at the hotel upon arrival, triggered an alert, and the tourist was arrested by the carabinieri at his first breakfast.
His lawyer explained he had struggled to gather evidence proving it was a case of mistaken identity, as the initial trial for aggravated theft dated back to 2014 and the final sentencing to 2020.
“The computer systems of the police, prison, court and carabinieri do not communicate with each other. I had to request documentation from each office,” he said.
According to Corriere del Veneto, the tourist and his family are expected to continue their holiday in Italy for a few more days before returning to Romania.
Undated photo of a traditional wooden boat docked in a canal in the city Caorle, coastal town in the Metropolitan City of Venice, Veneto, Northern Italy.
Marica van der Meer/Arterra/Universal Images Group via Getty Images
He “has decided to enjoy at least a few days at the beach , which had been his goal,” the newspaper reported.
“The damage was enormous, but he faced it with great dignity and calm ,” his lawyer told Corriere del Veneto.
Romania became the latest NATO member state to report a drone incursion into its airspace Saturday, while Poland scrambled aircraft in response to fresh Russian drone strikes just over the border in Ukraine.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned that Russia was deliberately expanding its drone operations and that the West needed to respond with tougher sanctions and closer defense cooperation.
In Washington, President Trump said he was ready to impose major sanctions on Russia — just as soon as all NATO nations did the same thing and stopped buying Russian oil.
Romania’s defense ministry said Saturday that the country’s airspace had been breached by a drone during a Russian attack on infrastructure in neighboring Ukraine.
The country scrambled two F-16 fighter jets late on Saturday to monitor the situation following the strikes, said a defense ministry statement.
The jets “detected a drone in national airspace” and tracked it until “it disappeared from the radar” near the Romanian village of Chilia Veche, it added.
Romanian President Nicusor Dan reviews a military honour guard with the German president during an official welcoming ceremony in the garden of the presidential Bellevue Palace in Berlin on July 18, 2025.
TOBIAS SCHWARZ/AFP via Getty Images
Also Saturday, Poland said it and its NATO allies had deployed helicopters and aircraft as Russian drones struck Ukraine not far from its border.
Because of the drone threat, “Polish and allied aircraft are operating in our airspace, and ground-based air defense and radar reconnaissance systems have reached their highest level of alert,” the country’s military command posted in a statement on X.
Later Saturday, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk announced that the high alert had been lifted, while cautioning: “We remain vigilant.”
Poland and its fellow NATO countries have been on their guard since Warsaw said nearly 20 Russian drones entered its airspace overnight Tuesday to Wednesday.
While Russia denies targeting Poland, several European countries including France, Germany and Sweden have stepped up their support for defending Polish airspace in response.
“Today, Romania scrambled combat aircraft because of a Russian drone in its airspace,” said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
“Also today, Poland responded militarily to the threat of Russian attack drones,” which had also been active in different regions of Ukraine all day, he added.
The Russian military knows exactly where their drones are headed and how long they can operate in the air,” said Zelenskyy.
The latest drone incursions were “an obvious expansion of the war by Russia”, he added.
What was required in response were fresh sanctions against Russia and a collective defense system, Zelenskyy argued.
“Do not wait for dozens of ‘shaheds’ and ballistic missiles before finally making decisions,” he warned, referring to the Iranian-designed Shahed drones Russia is using.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Saturday expressed concern at the Russian drone incursion into Polish airspace earlier in the week.
If it turned out to have been deliberate, “then obviously it will be … highly escalatory,” he told reporters in Washington.
Mr. Trump’s suggestion on Thursday that the incident might have happened by “mistake”, was quickly dismissed by Tusk.
In Romania, a proposed draft bill supported by city mayors seeks to transfer regulatory control over gambling to local authorities, including the introduction of new licensing taxes. This would diminish the National Gambling Office’s (ONJN) role in overseeing the sector.
Municipalities Support Bill to Give Them More Control Over Gambling
Presented by the Ministry of Development, if the bill passes, it would give municipalities the right to license or ban gambling establishments based on local development priorities, urban planning, public order, and public health. Currently, gambling operators are licensed at the national level, while local councils have only an advisory role in the approval process for physical gambling venues within their jurisdictions.
The push for more regional authority over the gambling industry comes at a time when Romania is increasing its oversight of the sector. So far, 2025 has proven to be quite an active time for lawmakers and authorities on that front, as the country has also worked with international companies to impose more control over the industry. For example, in June, Romania asked Meta and Google to block illegal gambling ads and to aid the state’s efforts to curb unauthorized gambling operations.
The initiative for giving more local authority to municipalities is being led by Nelu Popa, the mayor of Reșița. He has called on the government to give more authority to local administrations, citing the ONJN’s inability to effectively enforce regulations. Popa further explained that this failure has resulted in a surge of betting shops and gaming halls where operators seemingly disregard the rules.
This is already a problem that the country has been dealing with when it comes to the online space, as there are many companies targeting the local market and operating without a license. For this reason, the ONJN added 30 gambling websites to its blacklist just last week.
More Taxes Could Come If the Bill Passes
The bill also proposes additional taxation, with local councils aiming to introduce a direct levy to help mitigate the social impact of gambling.
According to the Ministry of Development, the reform would create the conditions for genuine public control over an economic activity with significant social risks, which is supposed to be tailored to each community’s specific context. The ministry also highlighted the importance of securing funding for social assistance, public safety, and local services.
This push for local-level taxation comes alongside recent national changes to the tax structure for online gambling, including differentiated rates based on gambling types and player winnings. The new government is working to reduce a budget deficit estimated at 30 billion lei (approximately $7.1 billion).
Two NATO members said Sunday that Russian drones violated their airspace, as one reportedly flew into Romania during nighttime attacks on neighboring Ukraine while another crashed in eastern Latvia the previous day.
A drone entered Romanian territory early Sunday as Moscow struck “civilian targets and port infrastructure” across the Danube in Ukraine, Romania’s Ministry of National Defense reported. It added that Bucharest had deployed F-16 warplanes to monitor its airspace and issued text alerts to residents of two eastern regions.
It also said investigations were underway of a potential “impact zone” in an uninhabited area along the Romanian-Ukrainian border. There were no immediate reports of casualties or damage.
Later on Sunday, Latvia’s Defense Minister Andris Sprūds said a Russian drone fell the day before near the town of Rezekne, and had likely strayed into Latvia from neighboring Belarus.
Rezekne, home to over 25,000 people, lies some 55 kilometers (34 miles) west of Russia and around 75 kilometers (47 miles) from Belarus, the Kremlin’s close and dependent ally.
While the incursion into Latvian airspace appeared to be a rare incident, Romania has confirmed drone fragments on its territory on several occasions since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, as recently as July this year.
Mircea Geoană, NATO’s outgoing deputy secretary-general and Romania’s former top diplomat, said Sunday morning that the military alliance condemned Russia’s violation of Romanian airspace. “While we have no information indicating an intentional attack by Russia against Allies, these acts are irresponsible and potentially dangerous,” he wrote on the social media platform X.
Latvia’s military on Sunday similarly said there were no indications that Moscow or Minsk purposely sent a drone into the country. In a public statement, the military said it had identified the crash site, and that a probe was ongoing.
Sprūds, the Latvian defense minister, sought to downplay the significance of the drone incursion.
“I can confirm that there are no victims here and also no property is infringed in any way,” Defense Minister Andris Sprūds told the Latvian Radio on Sunday, adding that any risks in the event were immediately eliminated: “Of course, it is a serious incident, as it is once again a reminder of what kind of neighboring countries we live next to.”
Ukraine Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha called the incursions “a reminder (that) the aggressive actions of the Russian Federation go beyond Ukraine’s borders.”
“The collective response of the Allies should be maximum support for Ukraine now, to put an end to (Russian aggression), protect lives and preserve peace in Europe,” Sybiha said in a post on X.
Civilians reported killed in Ukraine
In Ukraine, two civilians died and four more suffered wounds in a nighttime Russian airstrike on the northern city of Sumy, the regional military administration reported. Two children were among those wounded, the administration said. The Russian Defense Ministry claimed later on Sunday that its forces struck foreign pro-Kyiv fighters in a village on Sumy’s northern outskirts. It was not immediately clear whether this was a reference to the same attack.
Also on Sunday, Ukraine’s General Staff said that Russian troops continued to pound Sumy and the surrounding regions with airstrikes, and had lobbed at least 16 devastating “glide bombs” at the province by mid-afternoon. Russian forces shelled the city again during the day Sunday, wounding a teenager and a civilian man, the regional prosecutor’s office reported.
Three more women died Sunday after Russian forces shelled a village in the eastern Donetsk region, Gov. Vadym Filashkin reported on the Telegram messaging app. Separately, Russian shelling killed a woman on the outskirts of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second city in the northeast, local authorities said.
Meanwhile, the death toll rose to 58 from the massive Russian missile strike that on Tuesday blasted a military academy and nearby hospital in the eastern city of Poltava, regional Gov. Filip Pronin reported. More than 320 others were wounded.
Ukrainian servicemen carry crosses and pictures of their comrades killed in a Russian rocket attack at a Ukrainian military academy, during their funeral ceremony in Poltava, Ukraine, Saturday, Sept. 7, 2024.
Evgeniy Maloletka / AP
Since it launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in early 2022, the Russian military has repeatedly used missiles to smash civilian targets, sometimes killing scores of people in a single attack.
Russian forces continued their monthlong grinding push toward the city of Pokrovsk, and also ramped up attacks near the town of Kurakhove farther south, Ukraine’s General Staff reported.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said Sunday its troops had taken Novohrodivka, a small town some 19 kilometers (11 miles) southeast of Pokrovsk. An update published Saturday evening by DeepState, a Ukrainian battlefield analysis site, said Russian forces had “advanced” in Novohrodivka and captured Nevelske, a village in the southeast of the Pokrovsk district.
Pokrovsk, which had a prewar population of about 60,000, is one of Ukraine’s main defensive strongholds and a key logistics hub in the Donetsk region. Its capture would compromise Ukraine’s defense and supply routes, and would bring Russia closer to its stated aim of capturing the entire Donetsk region.
Berlin raises prospect of peace talks with Russia
Also on Sunday, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said that he and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy agree that Moscow should be included in a future peace conference aimed at ending its invasion of Ukraine.
“There will certainly be a further peace conference, and the president (Zelenskyy) and I agree that it must be one with Russia present,” Scholz told Germany’s ZDF public television.
A previous peace conference June 15-16 in Switzerland ended with 78 countries expressing support for Ukraine’s “territorial integrity” but otherwise left the path forward unclear. Russia did not participate.
Ukraine’s Zelenskyy did not immediately comment on Scholz’s remarks, but said in a video address Sunday that he had held “important negotiations” with the German leader and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni. He did not give details.
BUCHAREST, Romania (AP) — A court in Romania’s capital Thursday placed the divisive internet influencer Andrew Tate under house arrest for 30 days, as prosecutors investigate a sprawling new case that involves allegations of human trafficking of minors and sex with a minor.
The Bucharest Tribunal’s decision comes a day after prosecutors detained six people including Tate, 37, and his brother Tristan Tate, 36, after masked police raided four homes in Bucharest and nearby Ilfov county. Prosecutors had asked the court to remand the brothers in custody for 30 days. Tristan has been placed under judicial control, which typically involves geographical restrictions and reporting periodically to the police.
The brothers’ spokesperson, Mateea Petrescu, responded to the decision by saying the judge denied prosecutors’ request due to the brothers’ “exemplary behavior” while previously under preventative arrest measures in a separate case, and that they firmly deny all of the allegations against them and “remain steadfast in proving their innocence.”
The Tate brothers, both former kickboxers and dual British-U.S. citizens, are already awaiting trial in Romania in a separate human trafficking case along with two Romanian women. Romanian prosecutors formally indicted all four last year.
In the new case, Romania’s anti-organized crime agency DIICOT said it is investigating allegations of human trafficking, including the trafficking of minors, sexual intercourse with a minor, forming an organized criminal group, money laundering, and influencing statements. The alleged crimes date between 2014 and 2024.
DIICOT said the defendants used the coercive “loverboy” method to exploit 34 vulnerable victims who were forced to produce pornographic materials for a fee online, and that more than $2.8 million (2.5 million euros) it generated was kept by the defendants.
An unnamed foreign man also sexually exploited a 17-year-old foreigner, DIICOT alleges, and said he kept all of the $1.5 million (1.3 million euros) made from the criminal activity. The same man “repeatedly had sexual relations and acts” with a 15-year-old, the agency alleges.
Outside the court after the judge issued his house arrest measure, Andrew Tate told reporters that many of the alleged victims in the new case have statements in the Tate brother’s defense. “This is a set-up, it’s absolutely disgusting, fair play to that judge who saw through the bullshit and let us free,” he said.
Andrew Tate, who has 9.9 million followers on the social media platform X, is known for expressing misogynistic views online and has repeatedly claimed that prosecutors have no evidence against him and that there is a political conspiracy to silence him. He was previously banned from various social media platforms for misogynistic views and hate speech.
“During the entire criminal process, the investigated persons benefit from the procedural rights and guarantees provided by the Code of Criminal Procedure, as well as the presumption of innocence,” DIICOT said.
During the police raids on Wednesday, which also involved scouring the Tate brothers’ large property near Bucharest, authorities seized 16 luxury vehicles, a motorbike, laptops, thousands of dollars in cash, luxury watches, and data storage drives.
The latest case against the Tates adds to a litany of legal woes against them.
After the Tate brothers’ arrest in December 2022, they were held for three months in police detention before being moved to house arrest. They were later restricted to Bucharest municipality and nearby Ilfov county, and then to Romania.
In April, the Bucharest Tribunal ruled in that case that prosecutors’ case file against them met the legal criteria and that a trial could start but did not set a date for it to begin.
Last month, a court overturned an earlier decision that allowed the Tate brothers to leave Romania as they await trial. The earlier court ruled on July 5 that they could leave the country as long as they remained within the 27-member European Union. The decision was final.
In March, the Tate brothers also appeared at the Bucharest Court of Appeal in a separate case, after British authorities issued arrest warrants over allegations of sexual aggression in a U.K. case dating back to 2012-2015. The appeals court granted the British request to extradite the the Tates to the U.K., but only after legal proceedings in Romania have concluded.
