Renewing Romania’s European Project (REPER) is reaffirming its commitment to the observance of the law, drawing attention to the fact that in its current form the legal framework creates confusion, discriminatory application and major risks for free expression.
REPER thus requests, once again publicly, urgent clarifications of the position of the Standing Electoral Authority (AEP) and the Central Electoral Bureau (BEC) regarding the right of political actors who are not electoral competitors to express themselves legitimately in the ongoing presidential campaign.
Specifically, REPER expresses its concern over the way in which BEC interprets and applies the principles of equal treatment in the public space in the context of the 2025 presidential election.
„In press release 45 of April 15, 2025, BEC sends a profoundly unbalanced message: individuals are warned that they are exceeding their right to opinion, while political actors with direct influence on the electoral process – such as the Prime Minister of Romania who is also the president of a party with a candidate running in the electoral race – benefit from a suspicious tolerance in expressing political positions favourable to a certain candidate. Such an approach raises serious questions over the impartiality of the electoral authorities, given that political parties that are not electoral competitors in this election, such as REPER, do not receive official clarifications even after five days of the submission of an explicit request to both BEC and AEP.”
According to REPER, this institutional silence generates a dangerous precedent and contributes to an atmosphere of legal uncertainty in the electoral campaign, contrary to Romania’s obligations under EU Regulation 2024/900 on transparency in political advertising and the relevant internal rules.
„We consider that it is unacceptable that a political party cannot make use of its own internal and public communication channels to express its political position – without that being automatically interpreted as electoral funding, as long as the resources of a competitor are not called upon and forms of paid advertising are not used. The European regulation itself defines political advertising in a way that allows internal and unfunded communication, considering it a natural part of democratic life,” according to REPER national leader Camelia Salcudean.
