How the PSD became beholden to Dan Voiculescu. The virulent anti-EU discourse exported from Antena 3 studios directly to Brussels

Of the nine eligible positions allotted to the PSD for the EU elections, three are taken by Dan Voiculescu’s people: Carmen Avram, Chris Terhes and Maria Grapini. With the mogul’s loyal soldiers on its lists, the PSD strengthens its xenophobic and pro-corruption message, joining the growing ranks of the anti-EU faction of Orban, Salvini, and Le Pen. Romania is sending three Trojan horses in the EU parliament on the Europeans dime.

The PSD has always played favors to Dan Voiculescu, and in exchange for media coverage, they paid the mogul with seats in the national Parliament, in the EU Parliament, or in municipal councils. But never has it conceded a third of is portfolio like in the current case. The big shots in the party are disgruntled, and for a good reason, as Dragnea deprived their mistresses, their spouses, and their offsprings of the high-paying EU sinecures, in favor of the people from Antena. But of course Dragnea will quite these barons and their people’s screaming beaks with high-placed, well-paying positions in the cabinet, at public authorities or in the state-owned companies, and silence and serenity will befall the party once more.

From now on, the PSD and Antena 3 are one and the same thing. Dan Voiculescu’s TV station is one with the party, the official propaganda machine. It’s not by chance that Dragnea, no more than three months ago was fervently thanking Gadea and Badea, praising their efforts as aligned with those of the party.

The PSD and Antena 3 are both the party and the media arm of the brotherhood of the crooks. The PSD’s leaders amass more criminal files than the Sicilian Mafia, and the studio floors at Antena 3 look more like the prison yard at Jilava. Their agenda is only one: freedom and public contracts for the thugs.

The lethal danger comes from the unprecedented radicalization of the PSD-Antena 3 common public discourse. The anti-West assaults, the demonizing of the EU, the frequent touting of RO-exit as a last resort solution for freeing all crooks, the attacks on justice, the making-up of fake enemies like Soros and the deep or „the parallel state,” are but the unfolding of a joint plan concocted in 2017 by these two institutions.

This radical anti-EU message will now be taken deep in the very heart of the European Parliament by these three loyal soldiers of Voiculescu’s. But how has it come to this more-than-usual infestation of the PSD?

It all begins with the common interest of both Dragnea and Voiculescu. They both want the same thing: the destruction of justice. In Dragnea’s case, he wants to avoid conviction and to wipe his record clean. Voiculescu intends to recover his seized assets and to take revenge for his sentence. During the 2016 election, Antena 3 championed Dragnea and his lies, while demonizing Ciolos and his technocrats, to ensure the PSD’s leader victory. It’s worth noting how Antena 3’s anti-foreigners speech used during in 2014, was put on hold during the 2016 campaign to coordinate with the PSD’s campaign strategy.

Since 2017 though, the PSD and Antena 3 unleashed a full-blown attack on the judiciary beginning with the now infamous emergency decree 13. It is also around this time that Mihai Gadea, accused of „cuddling” with president Iohannis, lost his place as Dan Voiculescu’s favorite to Adrian Ursu. With a public discourse even more radical than that of Gadea (and, believe it or not, such a thing is possible) Adrian Ursu became the new de facto boss at Antena 3.

With the PSD’s poll numbers in freefall, with blow-after-blow to the economy by measures that only help Gazprom and convicts the likes of Ioan Niculae, with a completely hostile business environment, Liviu Dragnea became dependent on the expensive propaganda machine that is Antena 3. Dragnea is Voiculescu’s prisoner, and now it’s payback time: positions on the list of candidates in the elections for the EU Parliament.

It is around the same period, two years ago, that Carmen Avram, coincidentally became attracted to the PSD, as she herself stated. Carmen Avram, Adrian Ursu’s wife, in her last story on the series she produces for Antena 3, has created a perfect sample of the PSD’s propaganda against foreigners. A series of malicious laments on how the foreigners, aided by the Anti Corruption Directorate (DNA), have brought our pitiful little country’s economy to its knees.

It is the very same propaganda spewed relentlessly on Antena 3 by the other two candidates, the priest Chris Terhes (a once fervent admirer of Monica Macovei and the DNA) and the „humanist” Maria Grapini. And speaking of Grapini, she is a perfect match with the premier Dancila; the two of them are the ideal team for reforming the grammar and massacring the Romanian language in ways that hasn’t be done since Poptamas.

The coordinated attacks by the PSD and Antena 3 on the rule of law come from the same playbook of Viktor Orban in Hungary, and Steve Bannon, this newfound champion and idol of the eurosceptics all around Europe. Therefore the place of this PSD is not among the European Socialist (PES) and Frans Timmermans but with the right-wing populist parties like Orbans’ Fides, The Freedom Party (FPO) in Austria, the Northern League of Salvini’s in Italy, and with Le Pen’s National Front.

Once inside the EU Parliament, the PSD’s/Voiculescu’s people will join the growing ranks of this anti-EU movement. But will they take to Brussels the Ro-exit idea so dear to Adrian Ursu?

I would not be surprised to see them organizing symposiums about Europe’s abuses on some poor victims like Dan Voiculescu, Daniel Dragomir, or Liviu Dragnea. That will be the moment when the de facto reality will be revealed: that the PSD is not a left-wing party, but an anti-reformist and anti-European party.

Traducerea: Ovidiu Harfas