Last weekend, Romania’s capital city of Bucharest hosted a remarkable event, an international conference attended by prestigious representatives of conservative and sovereigntist parties and opinion leaders from eight European countries (Italy, Poland, Portugal, Finland, Belgium, Spain, Republic of Serbia, and Romania) and Israel. Entitled “That Europe We Believe In,” the conference was organised under the aegis of the Mihai Eminescu Institute for Conservative Political Studies, an organisation founded by the Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR) party.
More than a hundred people attended this event in a very impressive hall of the Palace of the Parliament, the largest administrative building in the world (for civil purposes). Organised in three parts, each two hours long, the conference aimed to “present a conservative vision for Europe’s development.” According to the organisers, cooperation in the form of a long-term partnership is “crucial” to “develop and secure a strong conservative bloc across Europe.”
The first part of the event was opened by the President of the Mihai Eminescu Institute, Senator Claudiu Târziu, and the President of AUR party, George Simion. In his speech entitled ‘In defence of normality,’ Târziu spoke about the degenerative phase Europe is going through today, the major cause being neo-Marxist ideology in his analysis. According to him, neo-Marxism is the source of the destructive policies promoted by Brussels, and it aims to demolish the world as we know it. By manipulating language, and through harsh restrictions, neo-Marxism “turns normality upside down” and seeks to establish a global, cunning dictatorship called the “new normal,” said Târziu. The “most aware” of this danger are conservatives, he remarked, as they “defend normality and restore it.”
President of the AUR party, George Simion, spoke of our Europe, as opposed to their Europe: “Our Europe and the way we see the world focuses on freedom—cultural, social, religious—while the Europe of Brussels bureaucrats means only restrictions and totalitarianism.” Simion expressed his hope that, following the European elections in May 2024, patriotic, conservative, and sovereigntist groups will celebrate a huge victory in the European Parliament, their future collaboration being necessary to defeat this ideological cancer.
The first part of the event continued with a speech by Kosma Słotowski MEP, a member of Poland’s Law and Justice (PiS) party, who remarked that Poland is one of the countries that has most deeply felt the EU’s disastrous measures, being “robbed” by the European Commission. Słotowski emphasized the need for a strong alliance of conservative parties in order to have any influence in the future European Parliament, and he praised the fabulous election results of the Right in Italy and Sweden.
Michael Kleiner, chairman of the Supreme Court of the Likud party, which recently had a major victory in Israel, highlighted that citizens must love their own country to understand why others love their own homeland. In a video message, French MEP Nicolas Bay (of Éric Zemmour’s Reconquête Party) welcomed the Mihai Eminescu Institute’s initiative of bringing together in Bucharest “defenders of our homelands, our values, and our conservative vision in the face of a European Union that has betrayed all the original ideas of this beautiful European project.”
Prince Șerban Dimitrie Sturdza, a diplomat and entrepreneur, descendant of an old Romanian noble family, spoke out against a federal super-state and in favour of “a communion of independent and sovereign states with their own decision-making power, with faith and culture as the catalyst.” “More and more people are waking up!” concluded the Romanian prince.
Spanish journalist Alvaro Peñas Lopez argued that conservatives must reconquer the narrative of Europe, presenting its peoples with the true history of the continent. “In the media we are in a David-Goliath situation,” he said, “and if we don’t tell the world about true European history, others will tell it according to their insane ideology.” In a much-appreciated speech, the Romanian journalist and former member of the European Parliament Traian Ungureanu, said that “our challenge, our mission, is not to reinvent, but to bring European culture back from where it was banished.”
This first part ended with a speech by the vice-president of the Finland’s Finns Party, Leena Meri, who spoke out against turning Europe “into a grey mass” adversely transformed by immigration. “We want a Europe that respects nation states,” she said, “and the latest victories encourage us to believe in a Europe led by sovereigntists.”
Part two of the conference began with a speech by AUR Senator Sorin Lavric, Secretary of the Romanian Senate, who stated:
On the brink of collapse, the EU must be reformed from the ground up. It will either be a union of sovereign states or it won’t be at all. AUR wants Romania to follow in the footsteps of Italy, Poland, and Hungary, countries where the political class had the courage to stand up to the neo-Marxist bureaucracy in Brussels.
The Romanian MEP Cristian Terheș then made his contribution, arguing that what is at stake today is the very existence of nations, and conservatives must act to remove and replace unelected elites who want to decide the destinies of nations with little regard for those nations’ peoples.
Francesco Giubilei, president both of the Italian conservative movement Nazione Futura and the think tank Fondazione Tatarella, spoke about Brussels’ deeply flawed measures in the fields of immigration, environmental issues, and energy, and he proceeded to speak of the primacy of national identity and his hopes for the centre-right government led by Giorgia Meloni. “We must prevent the erasure of our own identity,” said Giubilei in his presentation.
Radu Baltasiu, director of the European Centre for Ethnic Studies of the Romanian Academy, offered specific advice for saving the true Europe, above all making the European Parliament a truly representative institution. Radu Ghidău, president of the National Peasant Alliance, a Romanian political party, spoke about tradition: “respect for tradition is the embodiment of love for nation and country.”
Prof. Zbigniew Krysiak, Chairman of the Program Council of the Institute of Schuman Thought in Poland, referred in his speech to the “prophecy” of the great European visionary Robert Schuman: “Democracy in Europe will be Christian or it will not be democracy at all; anti-Christian democracy will be a parody that will continue to degenerate into tyranny or anarchy.” Marian Munteanu, director of the Romanian Institute for Memory and Identity, then expressed his firm belief in “the triumph of the one strong and true Europe, which we never really left.”
At the end of the conference’s second part, the president of the Portuguese Chega party, André Ventura, gave one of the most eagerly awaited and widely applauded speeches of the event. He spoke about how the European Parliament misuses funds to direct the political decisions of its member states: “All European countries need money—for reforms, for investment, for development, for health. But they don’t help us, they buy us!” He also highlighted the threats made by the head of the European Commission towards Italian citizens before the elections. Ventura defined the times we live in as a huge cultural battle, the scale of which can only be grasped by understanding what goes on in schools, universities, and campuses. “We must have the courage to engage in this battle, because otherwise it will transform us,” he said, “if we give them this power it will forever change our lives in such a way that in 2-3 years we will not be able to go back. We must fight!”
The final part of the conference was opened by the Romanian writer Andrei Dîrlău, who spoke about the “ideological drift” of the EU, characterising it as a “usurpation of powers” to the detriment of the member states, emphasising the sophistical use of the concept of “European sovereignty” by Ursula von der Leyen.
Next, Tamara Milenković-Kerković, vice-president of Serbia’s Dveri party and member of the National Assembly of Serbia, stated: “We are here to fight against a common opponent. Today, being a conservative means thinking freely and fighting for freedom. Political victory must also be the premise for victory in other fields, such as culture and education. Conservatives of all countries, unite!”
Romanian-American entrepreneur Cornel Petrișor, in his speech about how difficult it is to be conservative today, referred to the challenges faced by young people who believe in a “normal life, fundamental values, and God.” According to Francesco Paolo Capone, General Secretary of Italy’s Unione Generale del Lavoro, “the time has come for everyone in Europe to develop their own role and for everyone to assume their direction in the world. The Western world was born from our civilization, culture, solidarity. Europe has in its roots all the resources to respond to globalization.”
In another video message to the participants, Boško Obradović, chairman of Dveri party and also member of the Serbian National Assembly, referred to conservative parties as “defenders of the future” in times when “our Christian values, the traditional family, and our brave historic sovereign nations are threatened.” Professor Mircia Chelaru, AUR member of the Chamber of Deputies and former Chief of General Staff of the Romanian Armed Forces, insisted that “our struggle must focus on unmasking the fakes.” “Nations are not artificial identities, he said, “they cannot be reconfigured by laboratory mutations, retaining their natural resistance.”
At the end of the third part, Carlo Fidanza, leader of the Fratelli d’Italia delegation in the European Parliament and member of the ECR Group Bureau, said the following: “Europe is not a board meeting to take certain decisions. Europe must be the political place that puts into practice the dream of thousands of European citizens to build a future. We must be strong, proud of our identity, our history, our traditions, our roots. We must make an effort for a strong Europe!”
In his closing remarks, Târziu, who, as noted earlier, is president of the Institute that organised the conference, stressed that tradition must remain our constant source of political inspiration and strength, our own future being that which is at stake: “It is imperative to win the political battles—now!”
The conference organised in Bucharest by the Mihai Eminescu Institute for Conservative Political Studies had considerable echoes even in the mainstream media. Both participants and external observers noted the clarity and confidence of the distinguished guests, as well as the excellent organisation of the event.
