How Romanian President Klaus Iohannis became a situational ally with Viktor Orban, Russia’s trojan horse in NATO

President Klaus Iohannis has been left without any supporters in the race for the NATO leadership after Hungary and Slovakia announced their support for Mark Rutte (the former Prime Minister of the Netherlands). However, two notable aspects remain of the president’s candidacy. The first is already known: the situational, hardly honorable alliance with Viktor Orban. The second will soon be revealed: what Iohannis obtained for himself or for Romania from this political game.

I wrote as early as May that the president entered the NATO race alone, without the support of strategic partners, and delayed the entire process of appointing the new Secretary General, irritating everyone. He took all of Romania’s allies by surprise. Only one foreign actor played along with Iohannis, just to achieve his own objectives: Viktor Orban.

Orban stuck to Klaus Iohannis from the beginning of the year because he sensed the Romanian president’s weakness. He campaigned in Transylvania all year for the UDMR (the Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania) without Romanian authorities warning him about his anti-EU and anti-NATO deviations, as had happened in previous years.

A very relevant statement by Orban on June 2 in Salonta (a town in Romania), when he publicly said that Romanian authorities have no reason to criticize him for attacks on the EU because he is willing to support Iohannis for NATO leadership: „The Romanian government has no reason to criticize us because we are saying something different here than they are because in the two most important national goals of Romania, today the Hungarian government supports the Romanian government. We don’t need to prove our good faith after this position, because for the position of NATO Secretary General, we are capable and willing to support the President of Romania.”

Indeed, neither the government nor the Presidential Administration warned Orban, despite the lies and manipulations continuously poured into the heads of Romanian voters of Hungarian ethnicity.

What a difference from two years ago when President Iohannis publicly criticized Viktor Orban for his anti-European statements made in Băile Tușnad (a town in Romania).

„It is regrettable that a high-ranking European dignitary comes to the public stage with an anti-European discourse. It is erroneous, wrong, unacceptable regardless of where this stage is, the fact that this stage was in Transylvania is a problem for us,” Klaus Iohannis said in 2022 after Orban’s outbursts.

Orban’s speech has not changed one bit since then. On the contrary, the Hungarian leader has accelerated his anti-Western outbursts. But Klaus Iohannis has turned 180 degrees. He accepted all of Orban’s deviations even in Romania. He remained silent when Viktor Orban grossly manipulated Romanian citizens of Hungarian ethnicity regarding the Russian invasion of Ukraine. He calmly watched as propaganda from Budapest created one of Romania’s biggest problems: brainwashing nearly one million Romanian citizens who have come to believe more in the lies of Russia and Hungary than in the official policy of the Romanian state, the EU, and NATO.

Why did President Iohannis remain complicitly silent? Because he hoped Orban would block Mark Rutte in the NATO race, thus paving the way for the Romanian candidate. It didn’t matter that Orban was the kind of support nobody wants, an obstructionist who broke Western solidarity and blocked crucial decisions for Ukraine’s survival.

Relevant to the president’s silence is also the 2023 CSAT (Supreme Council of National Defense) report, which praises the relationship with Hungary despite Viktor Orban’s revisionist rhetoric: „Positive and substantial results, marked by discussions focused on concrete and substantive projects.”

Obviously, Orban played both sides. Today, after obtaining a concession from Mark Rutte for Hungary, the Hungarian Prime Minister supports the Dutchman. President Iohannis seems to have been left offside because Slovakia, another problematic state in the Russia-Ukraine dossier, has announced that it is backing Rutte.

It is very likely that there was no explicit agreement between Klaus Iohannis and Viktor Orban, but each played their own political game. But whether involuntary or not, the association of the Romanian president with Putin’s puppet is a political mistake. The coming weeks will show whether Iohannis secured a position in the EU, possibly a very well-paid one, following his game with NATO. And whether it was worth staying silent in the face of an Orban who did whatever he wanted in Transylvania.

PS: Note the total opacity in the way President Iohannis negotiated his position. While other leaders publicly stated their negotiation objectives, Iohannis rejected any questions from the media on this topic. Thus ends the term of the most non-transparent president of Romania in the last two decades.