By Cristian Preda, University of Bucharest.

This article was first published in the review Comunitatea liberală 1848 on the 20th of October 2025. Link to the original article in Romanian: Nu suntem toți suveraniști – Comunitatea Liberala.

Vasile Dâncu believes we are. In an interview where he ruled out an alliance between his party – the PSD – and AUR, the current MEP did not dismiss the possibility of cooperating with Simion in the years to come. Because, he explained, people change, the AUR leader might become acceptable company, and, above all, “we’re all sovereigntists, as long as we’re honest with ourselves and with our ideas.”

If we strip away the wooden language – since one can only be honest in relation to others, not with oneself – what remains is a false statement.

Because we are not all sovereigntists. The May 18 election made that perfectly clear, when the candidate of that camp was defeated by N. Dan. I even have my doubts that all of Simion’s voters were truly what the label his party flaunts actually stands for.

That label, let’s recall, comes from the expression “sovereign democracy”, coined by Vladislav Surkov – often described as Putin’s Rasputin – who for years was the Kremlin despot’s chief ideologue. Back in the 1950s–1980s, communist ideology countered “representative democracy” with “people’s democracy.” Now, the democracies that make up the EU are confronted with “sovereigntism.” Following the Russian blueprint, tailor-made suits of “anti-liberal democrats” have been sewn across various EU member states – Romania included.

Returning, however, to our own backyard, it’s worth noting that V. Dâncu’s statement came just days after Sorin Grindeanu, the interim PSD leader, announced that he would propose at the party congress to drop the term “progressive” from the definition of the party’s social-democratic ideology. Grindeanu’s hypocrisy is hard to match. Indeed, just days after making that proposal, the very same politician attended a meeting of European socialists held under the slogan “Progressive Mobilization.”

The ideological confusion within the PSD ranks is plain to see. Of course, some – from both right and left – will say: the PSD was never truly progressive. And, just as easily, PSD members will claim they were never nationalists either.

Labels aside, a turn toward sovereigntism – meaning a rejection of European institutions and policies – by the party that Grindeanu is poised to lead (since he’s now the sole candidate for PSD president) could well lead to an outcome similar to Slovakia’s. SMER, the party led by Robert Fico, was recently expelled from the European family it joined in 2005, two years after the PSD itself became a member. It was kicked out because, though social-democratic by origin, Fico turned sovereigntist.

Are Dâncu and Grindeanu preparing a similar path for the Social Democrats?
If that’s their plan, they might as well bring back Victor Ponta – who’s already declared himself a sovereigntist.

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Cristian Preda is a professor in political science at the University of Bucharest and a former MEP (2009-2019). His research areas are large, from political regimes, to political history, elections and party politics.