The Romanian authorities were not prepared for last year’s hybrid war, the independent presidential candidate, Nicusor Dan, stated on Thursday evening, during the debate with his opponent in the race, George Simion, at the Euronews television channel.
The two candidates in the second round of the presidential elections, Nicusor Dan and George Simion (AUR – Alliance for the Union of Romanians), were asked what measures they would take regarding the pro-Kremlin disinformation campaigns carried out including during the canceled elections in November.
„It is obvious that the Romanian authorities were not prepared for the hybrid war that we saw manifested in the November elections and here there are two important things to do – both on hybrid war and on cybersecurity – 1. the collaboration of the Romanian state with the Romanian companies that are world leaders in the field of cybersecurity, because, as in many other fields, the Romanian state has not turned to specialists and everything follows a routine of the state, which state is not capable of defending itself,” said Nicusor Dan.
At the same time, secondly, he evoked the need to appeal to the experience of those from the Republic of Moldova in this regard, but also to collaborate with the EU and NATO.
„We must appeal to the experience of our brothers in the Republic of Moldova, because they were subjected to a hybrid attack in the previous presidential elections and managed to cope, while Romania failed and (…) we also need a collaboration within the European Union and NATO on this issue of hybrid warfare, which concerns both NATO and the European Union,” Nicusor Dan also stated.
