EU Commissioner Mînzatu counting on Romanian 'pro-European stance' despite feared eurosceptic turn

Published on 29/04/2026 - 11:57 GMT+2

Romanian person and European Commission Vice-President Roxana Mînzatu has said she is “absolutely counting connected the pro-European stance of each subordinate state”, contempt signs of a imaginable eurosceptic displacement successful parts of eastbound Europe.

In Bulgaria, Moscow-friendly President Rumen Radev is successful the process of forming a authorities pursuing an electoral triumph earlier this month.

Meanwhile successful Romania, Mînzatu’s Social Democratic Party (PSD) is moving with the far-right AUR enactment successful a bid to topple the centrist government.

“I americium perfectly counting connected the pro-European stance of each subordinate state,” Mînzatu told Euronews’ flagship greeting programme Europe Today.

“The state I cognize champion is 1 wherever radical are precise attached to the European project… truthful I’m counting connected that to stay the main operator of democracy, arsenic it has ever been.”

“Democracy is the strongest plus of the European Union,” she added, stressing that elections are “part of this process” and “part of the game”.

Romania’s erstwhile ruling Socialist PSD has joined forces with the far-right AUR party, led by George Simion, to record a no-confidence question against the centrist conjugation authorities led by Prime Minister Ilie Bolojan.

The determination is antithetic for a left-leaning European party, which has traditionally criticised practice betwixt mainstream parties and Eurosceptic forces connected the governmental fringes.

The question has secured the indispensable enactment and is acceptable to beryllium voted connected successful the Romanian Parliament adjacent week.

It has drawn disapproval from respective EU politicians, including Romanian MEP Siegfried Mureșan, Vice-President of the European Parliament, who said the confederation “confirms what galore already know: the Romanian Socialists’ pro-European statement is declarative, not real”.

Mînzatu argued that beardown nationalist enactment for the EU successful countries specified arsenic Romania and Bulgaria means governments stay “driven by the pro-European presumption of their ain peoples”.

EU anti-poverty strategy

Mînzatu is besides acceptable to unveil the EU’s archetypal anti-poverty strategy adjacent week, targeting the 93 cardinal Europeans astatine hazard of poorness and societal exclusion. Many are “living from wage to salary” and look in-work poverty, she said.

“It’s important that we contiguous the close tools to enactment radical passim their lives,” Mînzatu said, adding that the strategy volition absorption connected prevention.

The program includes measures to tackle kid poorness done a “reinforced kid guarantee”, aimed astatine ensuring children are not affected by their families’ vulnerabilities. It volition besides code education, healthcare and enactment services.

Funding volition trust partially connected backstage concern and contributions from subordinate states, alongside EU instruments specified arsenic the European Social Fund.

According to Mînzatu, €100 cardinal from the Commission’s connection for the adjacent semipermanent EU fund would beryllium allocated to poorness prevention.