The Faux International

Far-right movements portray themselves as the vanguard of a global conservative revolution. They claim to represent “the people” — the working class especially — in an unequal heroic struggle against globalist elites, even though they are mostly elites themselves in economic terms. What’s most sinister about this parodic international-in-the-making is that its members retain the aesthetics of revolution while inverting the roles.

Recent months saw not one but two Make Europe Great Again (MEGA) conferences, one hosted by the ECR and one by the Patriots for Europe, another alliance of far-right groups in European Parliament. Leaders such as Meloni, Hungary’s Viktor Orbán, and France’s Marine Le Pen are all united against the European Commission, woke culture, and state regulation. Yet while in this sense they share a common enemy, their nationalistic objectives are more divergent than they would admit.

But you can’t have America First and Europe First at the same time. Trump’s tariffs and threats to annex Canada and Greenland have not left voters in other Western countries indifferent either. Le Pen has already started to timidly distance herself from Trump, despite Jordan Bardella — her young colleague, who is president of her National Rally party — saying “liking Donald Trump’s patriotism does not mean being the vassal of the United States.” Italian premier Meloni, one of Trump’s closest allies in Europe, also has to walk a fine line between the two blocs since Washington started turning its back on Ukraine. Only the likes of Orbán and Simion — each in countries that are smaller international players — have remained true believers.

Simion has long been an open admirer of Orbán, even saying that his policies will also be Romania’s policies. But the two neighboring countries have a long history stricken with irredentism and ethnic tensions. After initially supporting Simion in this contest, Orbán changed his mind.

This is because the political leader of the Hungarian minority in Romania reminded Orbán of how Simion ”walked all over our graves.” This is a reference to a violent ethnic incident that Simion instrumentalized in 2019. In a Transylvanian cemetery, tensions escalated after Romanian authorities placed tombstones over Hungarian soldiers’ graves. Hungarian activists protested by covering them in black plastic bags. Seizing the moment, Simion staged a visit to provoke the Hungarian minority. They took the bait and allowed him to portray himself as a victim of extremism and a champion of Romanian nationalism, further inflaming ethnic divisions.

Orbán has himself been attacked by his main opponent in Hungary for supporting Simion, straining any possible collaboration with the AUR candidate.

Still, Simion has shown a strong tendency to adapt. It was no problem for him to befriend Italian deputy premier Matteo Salvini, who used to refer to Romanian immigrants to his country as beggars, thieves, and criminals. AUR also had Holocaust deniers in its ranks, and Simion has in the past praised former fascist dictator marshal Ion Antonescu. When his party tried to minimize the Romanian Holocaust, a conflict erupted between him and the Israeli and US embassies. Yet it was no problem for him to change tack — and now AUR is Israel’s most ardent supporter in Romania.

Torn Between Far Rights

It is hard to say if the far-right alliance will stand the test of time. Will its members descend into nationalist bickering or work together to mold the EU in their image? It is probable that a “Europe of sovereign nations,” meaning a more divided and decentralized EU, will be a weaker Europe on the international scene. Still, Romanian or Hungarian nationalists would prefer smaller leading roles in a Balkanization of the EU over accepting a lower rank in a more powerful union.

The collaboration among nationalist forces across the EU isn’t so much a practical endeavor. Financial help and exchange of know-how can be helpful, but it’s a marginal advantage. The main reason for working together is that they are also fighting a culture war, which cannot be won at the national level alone.

They’ve had some victories already: the far-right has been normalized, extremist groups have become mainstream parties, and many of their policies have already started being adopted by governments. Many establishment parties decided that, in order to steal voters back from the far right, it was necessary to become more like it. Take the anti-immigration stances adopted by Emmanuel Macron or Keir Starmer. In Romania, the ruling Social Democrats even started scaremongering about LGBTQ issues after Georgescu’s recent breakthrough.

This process of normalization of the far right, breaking down barriers to broad public approval, is no longer something new. Nobody listens to a skinhead, but it’s different when renowned French commentator and writer Éric Zemmour starts talking about the “great replacement” conspiracy theory. It doesn’t matter that he’s essentially saying the same thing.

Legitimacy also comes from abroad, especially in semiperipheral countries like Romania. Indeed, being recognized as the equal of international far-right figures seems essential to Simion. All the selfies and photos he insisted on taking were not in vain. But his insistence often borders on pestering. In two interviews with Steve Bannon, Simion asks him directly for media support or to talk to Alex Jones to set up an interview. Both requests turn into awkward moments where Bannon pretended he didn’t hear and quickly changed the subject.

Simion often insinuates that he is backed by Trump, but there’s been little proof for that. It was recently revealed that AUR had paid $1.5 million to a lobbying firm in the United States for networking and to get Simion the support of prominent MAGA figures.

Despite his wannabe-vassal attitude, praising even the Trump administration’s decisions that most directly hit Romania, Simion has received little attention in return. It was Victor Ponta, another far-right candidate in the first round of the 2025 elections, that managed to get into a photo with Donald Trump Jr. The Tate brothers — freed from custody in Romania after pressure coming from US officials — also gave a message in support of Ponta, not Simion. It’s not much, but it’s still more than what Simion has to show.

It’s hard to know in detail how much the US government is really intervening in Romania’s political process. What we can see, however, is how conservative organizations and US politicians are acting. For instance, US Christian groups were directly involved in supporting a referendum against same-sex marriage in 2018. This was part of a Europe-wide pattern. Far-right media in the United States has also given Simion a significant platform to disseminate his views, inviting him to several interviews. And we can hardly forget the declarations of J. D. Vance and Elon Musk denouncing the Constitutional Court decision to annul last fall’s elections.

Despite his efforts to position himself within a broader conservative wave, Simion prefers not to address the contradictions within the international nationalist camp, particularly in his one-sided pursuit of closer ties with Trump. If there was any doubt of where his loyalties lie between the European and the American far right, Simion clarified this when he described his vision of the Western world as “the free world under the American flag.” But what if aligning with the United States is contrary to Romania’s interests?

For Simion, it seems that Trump can do no wrong. When the US imposed tariffs on the EU, Romania included, Simion defended the decision stating that this was ”a predictable answer to the EU’s reckless decisions to tax.” When Trump removed Romania from the visa waiver program — an arbitrary decision that suspiciously came exactly at the time of elections — Simion publicly supported him again.

Who Is George Simion?

It’s hard to know what Simion truly believes. He doesn’t seem to have strong convictions so much as adapt his views depending on the context.

Still, now thirty-eight years old, Simion has been a political activist since he was a teenager. First joining anti-communist and nationalist groups in the 2000s, he also became a leader of local football hooligans, known for their violence and xenophobia. But what brought him to relative fame was his activism over “reunification” with the Republic of Moldova, formerly part of Romania and the Soviet Union. This can be seen as his coming-of-age as a public personality, marked by high-profile tactics like occupying public squares and staging arrests in front of cameras.

Yet Simion’s political journey has been characterized by a strikingly erratic shift in both positions and alliances, making it difficult to pin down a consistent ideological identity. Despite his past association with pro-Moldovan stances, Simion has distanced himself from his earlier rhetoric. When asked if Romania should defend Moldova against a potential Russian invasion, he gave a blunt “no.” He is now banned from entering both Moldova and Ukraine after intelligence agencies accused him of collaborating with Russian operatives.

While he was a staunch anti-communist in his youth, he and his party, the AUR, began to nuance their stances on former communist dictator Nicolae Ceauşescu. The longtime chief of the Socialist Republic of Romania is said to ”also have done some good things,” and he was better than all the presidents after 1989, according to Simion. The reason for this is that many older voters are still nostalgic for socialist times.

More recently, Simion has tried to convert his image from an aggressive ultranationalist to a moderate conservative, while also trying to keep a bit of both. He’s trying to do this by tailoring his speech for different audiences. He can espouse tolerance and anti-racism on a liberal TV channel, then switch to promoting fear-driven anti-LGBTQ propaganda on TikTok for his more conservative voters. This inconsistency, though not unique to far-right populists, is striking in its speed, with Simion able to contradict himself within the briefest of intervals.

A century ago, it was adaptability, not ideological purity, that enabled fascist movements to rise from the fringes and get their hands on power. The same dynamic may also be at play today across Europe. In Simion’s case, such opportunism is the only constant. He is not defined by fixed beliefs but by his capacity to navigate the shifting terrain of populist and nationalist politics. His allegiances are likely to remain as fluid on the global stage as his inconsistent ideology has been in Romania.