Romania might be about to make a Trump-admiring former football hooligan its president. This is why | Andrei Popoviciu

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

57% : These are Romanians who live and work in countries such as Spain, Germany, the UK and France, directly benefiting from the freedoms and economic stability provided by the EU.
52% : Romanians won't head to the polls on 18 May to decide whether they want to be in the EU, because they overwhelmingly do.
50% : Romania is currently experiencing the highest level of inflation in the EU, combined with low wages and high taxes.
49% : This is because his targets are successive pro-European Romanian governments, dominated by the establishment parties, which promised prosperity but presided over the embezzlement of infrastructure funds, failed to modernise hospitals and delayed highway projects that Romanians had long been promised - all while EU money poured in.
48% : It is unlikely that these voters were rejecting "the west" or the EU as such, but rather a domestic political class that they blame for squandering the opportunities offered by EU membership, and the fact that they had to leave their home country in the first place.
47% : Elena Calistru, a Romanian civic activist and governance expert, tells me that Simion's is a more sophisticated approach than Georgescu's, who was outwardly proposing exiting the EU and Nato. "Simion is seeding deep distrust in democratic institutions themselves and promoting narratives that portray Romania as a 'second-class country' in Europe, treated like a colony by the EU and potentially dragged into foreign conflicts," she says.
45% : Add to that the pandemic restrictions, widely seen as heavy-handed attempts to control personal freedoms, and the government's alignment with EU policy on Ukraine, and apparent frustration at the bloc has deepened.
42% : Simion has adopted a similar tone, but has stopped short of openly calling for Romania to leave the EU or Nato.
40% : What they're really voting on is how to confront a broken system: through reform and international collaboration - or isolation and nationalism.
37% : If Simion wins, Romania risks becoming the next illiberal outpost inside the EU, joining Hungary and Slovakia.
37% : He could use his presidential powers to stall aid to Ukraine and undermine negotiations towards a collective climate and migration policy, while sowing further distrust in EU institutions.

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