Romanian Social Democrats ally with far right, testing Socialist credibility in Brussels

Romania's Social Democratic Party (PSD) voted on Monday alongside the far-right Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR) to pass a motion of censure against Prime Minister Ilie Bolojan, toppling the centrist coalition government the Social Democrats had themselves supported until last month. The manoeuvre has thrown a spotlight on the widening gap between the centre-left's European rhetoric, years of insisting that mainstream parties must maintain a cordon sanitaire against the far right, and the coalition arithmetic that now governs national capitals from Bucharest to Vilnius.

What happened in Bucharest

The PSD withdrew from Bolojan's coalition in early April, citing disagreements over judicial reforms and the pace of EU-funded investment projects. On 27 April its deputies joined AUR and the smaller S.O.S. Romania party to pass the censure motion by 234 votes to 177. Bolojan, a former European Investment Bank vice-president who took office in February after Klaus Iohannis resigned, now leads a caretaker administration. President Iohannis's successor has not yet been elected; the presidential runoff is scheduled for 18 May. Until then, the PSD holds the balance of power: it can negotiate a new coalition with the liberal Save Romania Union (USR) and the Hungarian minority party UDMR, or it can seek a governing arrangement with AUR, which finished second in last year's parliamentary election with 18 percent of the vote.

The Brussels credibility problem

For the Party of European Socialists (PES) and its parliamentary arm, the Socialists and Democrats (S&D) group, the Romanian episode is uncomfortable because it mirrors the behaviour they have spent years denouncing. Since the 2024 European Parliament election produced the most right-leaning hemicycle in the EU's history, S&D leaders have accused the European People's Party (EPP) of normalising the far right by governing with Brothers of Italy in Rome, the Sweden Democrats in Stockholm, the Freedom Party in Vienna and the PVV in The Hague. Now an S&D member party has supplied the votes that put a far-right formation into a position of kingmaker.

Vula Tsetsi, chair of the European Green Party, put the charge bluntly: "If PSD topples the government and strikes a coalition with AUR, they would be crossing a red line they themselves have set in Europe: refusing political cooperation with extremist forces." Terry Reintke, who leads the Greens/EFA group in the Parliament, acknowledged that Social Democrats have been "strong allies in the long-standing fight for the cordon sanitaire" but warned that "progressives lose when power is handed to the far right, one should never be tempted by power if the price is a coalition with the enemy of democracy."

A precedent in Vilnius

The Romanian case is not the first time an S&D affiliate has entered government with a party on the radical right. In 2025 Lithuania's Social Democrats formed a coalition with Dawn of Nemunas, a newly founded party led by Remigijus Žemaitaitis that has signalled its intention to join the Patriots for Europe group, the parliamentary home of Marine Le Pen's National Rally and Viktor Orbán's Fidesz. The Party of European Socialists did not publicly criticise the arrangement. Half a year later, a coalition of media-freedom NGOs wrote an open letter to PES and the S&D group warning that planned public-media reforms by the Lithuanian government would undermine editorial independence and urging the European party to determine whether its member was complying with core social-democratic values. PES did not respond to requests for comment at the time, and the letter went unanswered.

Lithuania is a small member state; Romania, with 19 million people and a strategic Black Sea coastline, is harder for Brussels to overlook. The difference in scale is why the current episode has drawn immediate reactions from the leaders of three other political groups, Greens, EPP and Renew, whereas the Lithuanian coalition attracted barely a whisper in the European Parliament's corridors.

Patriots versus ECR: a distinction that matters to some

Four S&D lawmakers who spoke on condition of anonymity downplayed the Romanian move. They argued that the cordon sanitaire is principally a European Parliament construct, designed to keep the Patriots for Europe group and the harder edges of the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) out of majority-building in the hemicycle. Because AUR sits in ECR, alongside Giorgia Meloni's Brothers of Italy, Poland's Law and Justice and the Czech Civic Democratic Party, these MEPs contend that cooperation with AUR at national level does not violate the same red line as a deal with a Patriots affiliate would. The distinction is contested. Valérie Hayer, chair of Renew Europe, rejected it outright in a Romanian television interview on Monday evening, calling it "irresponsible to align with those who undermine democracy, who undermine Romania, and who undermine Europe, those who are not aligned with our values, who question science, and who have Vladimir Putin as their closest ally."

EPP watches from the sidelines

Manfred Weber, the EPP chairman, limited himself to a call for "everyone to behave responsibly" in Bucharest to ensure government stability. His Romanian colleague Siegfried Mureșan was sharper. Mureșan predicted future cooperation between PSD and AUR and sketched a polarised landscape in which a pro-reform camp led by Bolojan faces an "anti-European camp around AUR, with the socialists only playing a marginal role in the Romanian political landscape in future years, as they already do in several other EU member states." The remark points to a broader trend: in France, Spain, the Netherlands and Germany, social-democratic parties have seen their vote share erode as the political axis shifts toward a nationalist-conservative versus liberal-green cleavage.

The S&D defence

Iratxe García, the S&D chair, told reporters she expects Romanian Social Democrats to "work with pro-European forces in future" and described that principle as "non-negotiable and at the very core of our political family." She noted that Sorin Grindeanu, the PSD president, has pledged not to enter a political agreement with AUR. García also framed the censure vote as a consequence of the PSD's own decision to leave the government, not as a premeditated alliance with the far right. Two S&D officials, granted anonymity to speak frankly, said the Brussels leadership was unaware of the Romanian party's intention to vote with AUR until the motion was tabled.

What happens next

The immediate test is whether PSD enters formal coalition talks with AUR or returns to a pro-European grouping with USR and UDMR. Grindeanu's pledge against a political agreement with AUR will be tested by the arithmetic: USR and UDMR together hold fewer seats than AUR, and any reform-minded cabinet would need PSD votes. The Party of European Socialists bureau meets in Brussels on 12 May; the Romanian file is expected to be on the agenda. Meanwhile, the presidential runoff on 18 May could reshape the calculus. A victory for the pro-European candidate, Elena Lasconi, would strengthen Bolojan's hand; a win for the AUR-backed contender, George Simion, would make a PSD-AUR accommodation far more likely. The S&D group has not ruled out launching an internal inquiry into PSD's compliance with the party's statutes, but no such procedure has been announced.