Nicușor Dan stated, on Antena 3, that he did not receive money from George Soros's foundation. However, almost 8 years ago, the current mayor of the Capital mentioned, in a statement for Adevărul, that he was sponsored twice by this NGO.
Nicușor Dan claimed that he “didn't” receive money from the Soros Foundation Photo: Archive
Nicușor Dan founded and led the Save Bucharest Association (in 2008), then established the political platform Uniunea Salvați Bucurestiul (USB), (in 2015), thus moving from the status of an activist to that of a politician, as Gândul mentions.
Nicușor Dan claimed, Friday afternoon, live on Antena 3, that “not” received money from the Soros Foundation to organize the Roșia Montană protests in Romania.
The general edile of the Capital was confronted with several screenshots showing that over the years (in 2013, 2018, 2020) he made several posts on social networks, in which he invited the world to protest about the non- exploitation of Rosia Montana.
Dan stated that he hopes that the Romanian state will not be obliged to pay the compensation requested by the companies Gabriel Resources Ltd. and Gabriel Resources (Jersey) in the international arbitration file opened against Romania, related to the “gold mining project in Roşia Montană”, amounting to approximately USD 6.7 billion.
“I hope they don't pay. If he will pay, those people who committed, in the early 2000s, committed to the company with whom they committed, that the project is legal and will give all the authorizations, are responsible. And it turned out, without them doing the analysis, and without the contract they made in the early 2000s stipulating that if the environmental conditions are not respected, if the heritage protection conditions are not respected, this project will not can be achieved. It was necessary, at the time when those commitments were made, that not only the Romanian state should insure its risks, that the investor, as he assumes anywhere in this world, should assume his risks”, said Nicușor Dan, after being asked what role he had in organizing the protests for Roșia Montană in Romania. and why he organized them.
Asked what the Soros Foundation had to do with the protests in the Capital, Nicușor Dan said that he could not find any other hall than the foundation's to organize a press conference at that time.
“We were an NGO, together with other NGOs, that do not have a headquarters in 2013, yes? especially a headquarters where you can invite 50 journalists or 20 journalists, and these people who were a foundation like us, had a room where we held this press conference in which I would also participate”, he said Dan.
Asked if there was a proposal from the NGO to organize the conference there and if it was related to the Roșia Montana theme, Nicușor Dan answered: “I don't remember what happened at that moment. There were, I think, 30-40 NGOs that were active on this subject, including the NGO that I was in, the Save Bucharest Association, and probably in the consultations that we had then, informally, where to hold the conference of the press it turned out that there, at the Soros Foundation, there is a hall that (matches no)”.
Asked if he did not take any money from Soros, Nicușor Dan said that: “without discussion“.
The Edilul General of the Capital claimed that “The USR was founded after the USB and the USB was founded after the Save Bucharest Association”, which he established “and she was involved here too.”
Asked if he organized the protests in connection with Roșia Montană to form his party, Nicușor Dan denied it.
“Not. I organized these protests out of conscience, out of responsibility for the protection of the environment in Romania, that all the surrounding localities could be affected. And for… And I have done more than you say, I have also been to the courts in Romania, which canceled dozens of documents of this investment in a row“, added Nicușor Dan.
What he declared 8 years ago
In 2016, however, Nicusor Dan, who was a USB candidate for the Capital City Hall, confessed, on Adevărul Live, that he was sponsored twice by the Soros Foundation: the first time personally, as a mathematician. The second time he received money in the name of the foundation he managed. As for the financiers of the local campaign, for now there is no word: “This is their desire and it is justified by the pressure that state institutions exert on those who are anti-system“.
Asked if he is financed – as has been reported – by the American billionaire George Soros, Nicuşor Dan answered: “Let's clarify: in 1991 or 1992, I received 300 or 400 dollars from the Soros Romania Foundation to send me to a mathematics school in Italy. The Save Bucharest Association (which Nicusor Dan leads – no) had funding from several donors, but once it had funding of 5,000 euros from an American foundation – CEE Trust – with a specific purpose: to make a handbook of good practice for town planning. The CEE Trust Foundation has, in turn, 7 financiers, including the Soros Foundation. This is all the relationship I ever had with Mr. Soros“.
As for possible financing “from the East, from Moscow”, Nicuşor Dan said: “At us (at the Save Bucharest Foundation – no) everything is public, on the website of the Ministry of Finance you can see the budgets we had. We had as financiers the French Embassy, the CEE Trust Foundation, the Order of Architects, this kind of financiers, never what you say”.
