European leaders on campaign trail in Bucharest

Published on 18 October 2012 at 13:06

In the Romanian parliament building, leaders of the European People's Party (EPP), including the President of the European Commission, José Manuel Barroso and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, made speeches in the presence of Romanian President Traian Băsescu and members of his right-wing coalition ARD.

Meanwhile, in the National Stadium, the president of the Alliance of Democrats and Liberals for Europe, Guy Verfostadt and the head of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party, Graham Watson as well as Bulgarian Socialist Sergueï Stanichev addressed a crowd of 70,000 supporters of the USL, the centre-left coalition of Prime Minister Victor Ponta.

On October 17, Bucharest was, for the day, the capital of European politics. The events were organised in conjunction with general elections scheduled for December 9. It was a day on which "the ARD and the USL struggled to obtain a European legitimacy," sums up Romanian daily România Liberă.

The paper questions the timing of the competing events organised for the same day at the same time: "A full stadium shows the USL's spontaneous popular appeal while Merkel's speech is but a display of support to Romania by the most powerful European country ". But was it necessary to "drag EU leaders through the mud" by organising a counter-event? queries România Liberă. Only if the centre-left wishes to "distance itself from the EU," the paper responds.

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But Romanian web site Gândul.info, on the contrary, is heartened that —

Europe was everywhere in Bucharest on October 17. Each had the same goal, to brandish a mirror to the people with Europe as a motivating force. This contest of electoral showcasing was useful from a political perspective because it made Romania the political capital of Europe.

Yet the site warns against what it calls —

... a regression in political civilisation. This competition between two national blocs, the USL and the ARD, which are crudely linked to Europe and to Brussels, return us to a primitive state. To pretend to the voters that Brussels decides over internal political issues, such as elections, is false, totally false.

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