In a two-day official visit to Austria, the President of Romania, Nicușor Dan, offered common press statements with his Austrian counterpart, Alexander Van der Bellen. Asked by a journalist how he intends to counteract the Russian interference in Romania, the head of state offered a detailed answer and pointed out the need to rebuild public trust in the authorities.
The regaining of the population’s confidence in institutions is essential, says N. Dan. Photo: video capture
“In this type of interference, it is not very easy to prove after a week, after three weeks, after a few months exactly”, said Nicușor Dan, recalling that a week ago, official communicated by the Government of the United Kingdom, the European Union and NATO, who confirmed actions of some Russian Military Secret Service, GRU, since 2016, were issued simultaneously.
“Only now we have the concrete proof of who produced them,” added the president.
Referring to the Romanian elections, Nicușor Dan spoke about the existence of a “Online networks” well organized, which “They attracted people on different topics, from sport to health or natural remedies, esotericism and kind of other things, which I saw at some point in the electoral context that they acted in a direction.”
“And then there is a strong suspicion that this is an interference of a state that can only be Russia, especially since this we see happening in several places in Europe,” said the president.
He also accused the campaigns paid by misinformation carried out on social networks, both in the presidential elections in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and in the previous election. However, he appreciated that “In the presidential elections in May in Romania there was a very, very powerful reaction of the Romanian society, which saw the danger.”
As an example “educational”, Nicușor Dan mentioned the Republic of Moldova, where in addition to online misinformation and cyber attacks, thousands of votes were documented, confirmed by the Moldovan Prosecutor’s Office.
“I have really seen the networks of people who bought votes. And they are proven, there are several thousand cases on last year’s elections that were proved by the Prosecutor’s Office of the Republic of Moldova.”
How to counteract the interference, in Nicușor Dan’s vision
Asked how Romania can effectively counteract such attacks, the president replied: “We must be able to react in half an hour for false news, so that it does not reach several million people and the news that corrects it no longer impact.”
But the most important measure, in his opinion, is to regain the confidence of the population in institutions:
“And the most important thing is that all these conspiracy and false news take shape when people do not trust authority.
In fact, here is our problem – I speak of Romania now – here is our problem. People, some of them, do not trust authority. Moreover, they have a sense of anger against authority, and then they are willing to believe whatever is directed against the current authority.
And then, we must, through a long process, regain the confidence of these people. ”
