On Friday 6 December, the Romanian Constitutional Court cancelled the first round of the presidential election held on 24 November, which was won against all odds by the pro-Russian candidate Călin Georgescu. The second round was due to be held on 8 December.
“The whole electoral process will start again. A new date for the first and the second round of elections will be set”, said MEP Siegfried Mureșan (EPP, Romanian), on X.
Criticised by Elena Lasconi, the centrist candidate who came second in the first round, the Romanian Constitutional Court’s decision comes after the declassification of documents from the national intelligence services which reveal a large-scale operation designed to manipulate the algorithm of the TikTok social network in favour of Mr Georgescu.
The publication of these documents led the European Commission to require the social network to retain, on the basis of the DSA Regulation, all data relating to the actual or foreseeable systemic risks that it could pose to electoral processes in the EU, until the end of March 2025 (see EUROPE 3539/10).
On Friday, prior to the Romanian Constitutional Court’s announcement, the EU institution sent TikTok a new “urgent” request for information under the DSA Regulation in order to obtain more data on possible foreign interference in the first round of the Romanian election. TikTok has 24 hours to respond to these requests.
“We are concerned about the growing indications of a coordinated foreign online influence operation targeting the ongoing Romanian elections, in particular on TikTok”, said the Commission’s Executive Vice-President for Digital Policy, Henna Virkkunen, on X.
See the press release from the Romanian Constitutional Court: https://aeur.eu/f/epi (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion and Isalia Stieffatre)