# George Simion

George-Nicolae Simion (born 21 September 1986) is a Romanian politician and civic activist. He is the founder and chairman of the Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR), the second largest party in both houses of parliament since 2024.
Simion studied at the Gheorghe Lazăr National College, the University of Bucharest and the Alexandru Ioan Cuza University, graduating from the latter with a master's degree in history. After his studies, he began campaigning for the unification of Moldova and Romania, and has since created and organised notable associations and events for this purpose, such as Unionist Platform Action 2012, the Alliance for the Centenary and the Centenary March, having also participated in several protests supporting Moldovans' rights. As a result, he has been prohibited from entering Moldova on several occasions in the past, and he is currently barred from entering the country as a persona non grata.
In 2019, Simion stood for office as an independent candidate in the European Parliament election in Romania, in which he obtained 117,141 votes. After this, he founded the AUR party in December 2019, with himself as chairman. While the party's stated goal is the unification of the Romanian ethnicity, it has been accused of having a far-right orientation. The AUR garnered national and international attention after its unexpectedly high 9% vote share in the 2020 parliamentary election, followed by 18% in 2024.

## Early life

George-Nicolae Simion was born in Focșani, the capital city of Vrancea County, in the Socialist Republic of Romania, on 21 September 1986. Both his parents were economists, with his father working for the Romanian Development Bank. Simion has said to have attended the opening of the first McDonald's restaurant in Romania in 1995, considering it a symbol of capitalism in the post-Communist society he grew up in. He graduated from the Gheorghe Lazăr National College in Bucharest. After this, Simion studied at the University of Bucharest, at the Faculty of Business and Administration, and later at the Alexandru Ioan Cuza University in Iași Located in the historical region of Moldavia, where he obtained a master's degree in history after having as research topic "the crimes of communism".

## Activism (2004–2019)

In 2004, Simion exhibited the message "Heroes never die" (Eroii nu mor niciodată) in Timișoara on the 15th anniversary of the Romanian Revolution, that as a part of the revolutions of 1989 ended 42 years of Communist rule in Romania under Nicolae Ceaușescu. In 2006, he organised a protest in Bucharest in favour of Moldovan students of the Gheorghe Asachi Romanian-French High School [ro] of Chișinău.
In 2011, he established Action 2012 (Acțiunea 2012), a coalition of NGOs and civic associations advocating for the unification of Moldova and Romania. Action 2012 participated in the 2015–2016 protests in Moldova.
In 2012, he organised a protest in Bălți, Moldova's second-largest city, under the banner "Bălți feels Romanian" (Bălți simte românește). In 2014, Simion organised a protest in favour of the Romanian Bessarabians after they were insulted by a Romanian television producer.
In 2017, Simion criticised the Romanian state for not preparing enough events to celebrate the centenary of the Great Union as other countries like Poland had done. Therefore, he founded the Alliance for the Centenary and announced that many events had been prepared for 2018, including a march from Alba Iulia in Romania to Chișinău, the capital of Moldova.
This march took place from 1 July to 1 September 2018 as the Centenary March. Organised by Simion, it was divided into eleven stages and covered about 1,300 kilometres (810 miles). It was designed in a way that important places for World War I and Great Union of Romania would be visited. The march started on 1 July in Alba Iulia in front of the Coronation Cathedral, where Ferdinand I was proclaimed King of Greater Romania. The march ended as planned on 1 September on Chișinău, where participants were welcomed by thousands of enthusiasts and where they made one final protest at the Great National Assembly Square of the city. However, Simion was unable to participate in the final stage of the march in Moldova as he was banned from entering the country earlier on 28 August.

### Entry bans into Moldova

Simion's unionist activities and events have provoked discontent from the Moldovan authorities, which have expelled him on several occasions. The first time that this happened was in March 2009, while a protest commemorating the 91st anniversary of the union of Bessarabia with Romania was taking place. Simion, along with Eugen Rusu, one of the main organisers of the event, were arrested for "violating public order". Rusu was placed under administrative detention and Simion was fined and released. This was followed by the prohibition of dozens of Romanian citizens of entering Moldova. For all of this, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Romania asked for explanations. The second time Simion was banned from entering Moldova was on 16 December 2014. This was supposed to be lifted on 20 December, but he was allowed to enter Moldova a few hours later through Sculeni.
On 14 May 2015, Simion was banned for the third time from entering Moldova for a period of 5 years for "endangering national security" through his events, becoming a persona non grata. As a result, the Romanian embassy in Chișinău demanded explanations. This decision was lifted on 18 September. However, once again, on 5 February 2016, he was banned for the fourth time, but this was annulated the next day.
On 28 August 2018, Simion, while participating in the Centenary March, was again banned for the fifth time for a period of 30 days for "displaying aggressive and inappropriate behaviour and refusing to comply with legal procedures to cross the state border [between Moldova and Romania]". The sixth and last time in which Simion was banned from entering into Moldova was on 1 October 2018, for a period of five years. He was allegedly arrested and beaten up, uploading to Facebook a picture with a head injury and another one with the prohibition document stained with blood. The Moldovan police rejected these declarations and said that the procedure was carried out in a peaceful manner. As of 2020, this ban remains in effect.

## Political career (2019–present)
### 2019 European Parliament election in Romania

Simion began his political career on 12 January 2019 by announcing his Independent candidacy for the 2019 European Parliament election in Romania to be held on 26 May. Having already been an activist for the unification of Moldova and Romania, Simion had as his main objective making this project a European one. His campaign slogan was România Mare în Europa ("Greater Romania in Europe", referring to the borders of the Kingdom of Romania in the interwar period, achieved in 1918 after the Great Union.
In addition to this, he promoted an "anti-party" message, arguing that only an Independent candidate and not the different partisan interests could truly represent the interests of the Romanians. Simion declared he would fight for the rights of the Romanian minorities, such as those in Serbia or Ukraine, as well as the protection of the rights of Romanian diaspora members working in the European Union (EU). He also expressed his intention to halt the country's illegal deforestation and start the construction of motorways better connecting Romania and Moldova.
Simion also promised to bring at least one child from every Romanian locality to the city of Brussels to teach them about the workings of the EU and to donate three-quarters of his salary as a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) to projects in Romania or Moldova. Apart from Simion, there were two other independent candidates in the election, Gregoriana Tudoran and Peter Costea.
Simion got 117,141 votes, equivalent to 1.3% of the votes in the election, failing to acquire a seat in the European Parliament.

### Alliance for the Union of Romanians

On 19 September 2019, the Romanian political party Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR) was formally established. Initially, Simion was one of the two co-presidents of the party, the other being Claudiu Târziu. Time later, on 1 December, during the Great Union Day (Romania's national day), Simion announced that AUR intended to run in the 2020 local and parliamentary elections. AUR won in three towns: Amara, Pufești and Valea Lungă.
AUR's popularity increased after obtaining 9% of the votes at the 2020 Romanian parliamentary election, becoming Romania's fourth-largest party despite having been created just over a year ago at the time. This popularity increase was also due to the intensive use of social platforms on the Internet. The party had a high support from the diaspora, especially Romanians in Italy, Cyprus, France and Spain.
According to the party's website, AUR's ultimate goal is to achieve the unification of all Romanians "wherever they are located, in Bucharest, Iași, Timișoara, Cernăuți, Timoc, Italy or Spain". It has four self-described pillars: family, nation, Christian faith, and liberty. The AUR supports the unification of Moldova and Romania and has been accused with being ultranationalist, far-right, opposed to same-sex marriage, anti-mask, anti-vaccine and Magyarophobic.
On 20 January 2021, Simion met with Janusz Kowalski, state secretary of the Polish Ministry of State Assets, and with Radosław Fogiel, advisor of Law and Justice party leader Jarosław Kaczyński, in Warsaw. They talked about the situation of strategic state-owned companies and a bill against Internet censorship. Simion gave Fogiel a map of Greater Romania. On 21 January, the co-president of AUR met in Brussels with conservative MEPs, where they talked about the European mobility package, the European Green Deal, the implementation of a "vaccine passport" and Big Tech censorship. Following the meetings, on 22 January, Simion announced that AUR would affiliate itself with the "European political family of conservatives and reformists".
On 27 March 2022, the first congress of AUR was held at the Palace of the Parliament. Simion ran to be voted in as party chairman, his only opponent being the then AUR deputy in the Constanța County Dănuț Aelenei. Aelenei stated that he only nominated himself to show that AUR was a democratic party and that he did not want to "expel" Simion from the party, admitting that he was less well-known than him. Simion got 784 votes while Aelenei received 38, resulting in Simion becoming the party's sole chairman, having previously shared this position with Târziu.

### 2024 and 2025 presidential elections

Following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Simion called Russian president Vladimir Putin a war criminal and said that international sanctions against Russia "were not enough". On 22 November 2024, following the election of Donald Trump as US president, Simion expressed opposition to additional military aid to Ukraine, hoping that Trump would prove successful in ending the Russo-Ukrainian War, which had escalated following the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Simion stood in the 2024 Romanian presidential election, finishing fourth in the first round on 24 November with 13.9%, behind Georgescu, USR candidate Elena Lasconi and Social Democratic prime minister Marcel Ciolacu. Independent candidate Călin Georgescu took a chok lead with 22.9% of the vote against USR candidate Elena Lasconi, with Simion announcing his endorsement of Georgescu for the second round scheduled for 8 December. However, two days before then, the Romania's Constitutional Court annulled the election, with new presidential elections being announced in January 2025 to be held on 4 and 18 May. On 14 January 2025, he was elected vice-president of the European Conservatives and Reformists Party.
For the 2025 elections, Simion was a key supporter of Georgescu along with POT leader and former AUR deputy Anamaria Gavrilă, stating the he would not stand if Georgescu was allowed to by the Constitutional Court. Simion had previously endorsed Georgescu for prime minister in the 2020 parliamentary election. On 1 March, Simion organised a protest in with tens of thousands of participants in Bucharest's University Square, stating that its objectives was to "restore democracy and free elections" and demand the resignation of prime minister Ciolacu. He also doubted the integrity of the upcoming electoral processes.
On 7 March 2025, Georgescu filed his candidacy for the election, with the Central Electoral Bureaure rejecting it two days later. After an appeal, a final decision of barring Georgescu from the election was made on 11 March.
Shortly after the video by Simion in which he i.e. had stated that "Those who committed the coup should be flayed in the public square", a crowd of Georgescu supporters gathered in front of the CEB headquarters in Bucharest in his support, including many supporters of AUR party. Some individuals present at the site became violent after the news of his candidacy rejection broke. They threw stones at the police, injuring 13 of them, and committed arson. Having announced to do so two days prior, Simion arrived to the Central Electoral Bureau (CEB) on 14 March accompanied by former Polish prime minister Mateusz Morawiecki to file his candidacy for president after collecting 604,000 signatures, above the minimum requirement of 200,000. The CEB approved his candidacy on the following day, which was also the deadline for candidates to register, with Simion stating "We passed the BEC, now let's see if we pass the CCR and return to democracy". The CCR validated his candidacy one day later as well as the ones of Nicușor Dan and Victor Ponta.

## Controversies

Simion participated in the 2019 disputes regarding the military cemetery in Valea Uzului [ro] between Hungarians and Romanians, blaming the Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania (UDMR) for the incident. Members of Noua Dreaptă also participated in the clashes.
Former Moldovan defence minister Anatol Șalaru accused Simion of having met with an officer of Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) in Chernivtsi, Ukraine, in 2011, but failed to provide any evidence. Simion denied these accusations and described himself as "the most Russophobic party president" in Romania.
Simion and his party have also been criticised for helping two former soldiers, Francisc Tobă and Nicolae Roman, who allegedly participated in the repression of the Romanian Revolution in 1989, to be elected to the Romanian Parliament. The party members' presence in front of the Romanian National Opera in Timișoara, a symbol of the revolution, also provoked discontent. Simion was asked to leave out both persons in order to prove his good faith when participating in protests commemorating the revolution.

## Personal life

As of 2021, Simion lived in a small studio flat in Bucharest, purportingly donating 90% of his salary from parliamentary employment to civic causes, related to Romania or Romanians. On 27 August 2022, he married 24 year old Ilinca Munteanu at a public Orthodox ceremony in Bucharest. On 24 April 2024, Ilinca gave birth to the couple's first child, a boy named Radu, who was baptised in Gura Humorului on 5 July, with a private party with around a 1,000 guests on the following day.