Romania’s Far Right Imports Anti-Immigrant Line
Historically, Romania has had more emigration than immigration. Yet nationalist parties are now importing US Republicans’ anti-immigrant talking points, using culture-war rhetoric to distract from bigger economic questions.
George Simion, the leader of the far-right Alliance for the Union of Romanians. (Klaudia Radecka / NurPhoto via Getty Images)
In late August, a twenty-year-old Romanian fascist admirer filmed himself as he attacked a Nepalese food-delivery worker. “Go back to your country, invader!” he shouted as he punched the migrant’s face. Around the same time, a brawl erupted between Romanian and foreign employees at an IKEA factory. Meanwhile on Facebook, an MP for the leading far-right party, now sadly mainstream, advocated for people to refuse food if delivered by a foreigner.
Late in October, the New Right — an overtly fascist party — held a protest in the capital, Bucharest, against the “replacement of Romanians with foreign populations of a non-white race.” In early November, another far-right leader, George Simion — runner-up in the recent presidential election — and his nominee for Bucharest’s mayoral race posted a picture with them between two buildings. “Romanians live in the building on the left, migrants live in the one on the right, renovated with state funds,” he wrote — insinuating that migrants get all the benefits, not Romanians.
Before 2025, anti-migration discourse had been virtually nonexistent in Romania. So how did we get to this?
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