SOURCES: NATO Deputy Secretary General Mircea Geoană is attempting to organize a major NATO event in Bucharest in May, as a springboard for his presidential candidacy

NATO Deputy Secretary General, Mircea Geoană, is trying to organize a significant NATO event in Bucharest, in May, as a launching pad for his presidential campaign, multiple official sources told G4Media.ro. According to them, the event in question is the NATO Youth Summit, which is expected to gather over 1000 young people in Bucharest. The last NATO Youth Summit was held last year in Brussels, where the Alliance’s headquarters are also located.

Mircea Geoană did not respond to inquiries from G4Media.ro regarding whether he will announce his resignation from the position of NATO Deputy Secretary General after the event in May and officially announce his candidacy.

The presidential elections have been officially moved up and will take place in September.

This is not the first time Mircea Geoană has used the resources of the North Atlantic Alliance to organize events that politically profile him.

G4Media.ro, in a monitoring conducted last year, counted at least 18 occasions when Mircea Geoană was present in Romania and participated in both official NATO events and meetings with students, teachers, cultural events, public gatherings, book launches, or appeared live on television shows.

The visits took place in almost all the major cities of the country: Bucharest, Cluj-Napoca, Craiova, Constanța, Iași, Bacău, Sibiu, Oradea, Timișoara, Ploiești.

During the same period, G4Media identified only two visits made by the NATO Deputy Secretary General to other countries of the Alliance’s eastern flank (one visit in Lithuania, one in Bulgaria, and no visit in Poland, Estonia, Latvia, or Hungary).

• NATO representatives pretended not to see Mircea Geoană’s aggressive campaign in Romania for the 2024 presidential elections and avoided for the second time to provide, at the request of G4Media, the cost of the Deputy Secretary General’s visits and to comment on the numerous „stops” he made in our country, disproportionate compared to visits made in the last year to any other member state. The response is not assumed by the NATO press office or any other representative, but by an Alliance official: „The Deputy Secretary General travels regularly to represent NATO, including in recent months to Bulgaria, Denmark, France, Germany, Israel, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Moldova, Norway, Romania, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The travel costs for official visits are covered by NATO, while his private travels are self-financed.”

Meanwhile, Mircea Geoană has built a communication team in Romania and is consistently measured in polls as the favorite in the presidential election intentions. However, Geoană does not publicly assume he wants to run, although it is transparent from all his actions.

Context

On February 13, G4Media.ro revealed that the „Romania Reborn” movement launched its official website at the beginning of this year, defining itself as „a Political Project for a fundamentally transformed Romania.” The movement adopts entire phrases and specific formulations from Mircea Geoană’s speeches, such as „a historical leap for Romania,” and photos posted on social networks show him at events under the „Romania Reborn” logo.

Notably, the website does not provide any details about the team managing this „political project” and does not mention Mircea Geoană’s name. However, there is a photograph from behind of the NATO Deputy Secretary General.

Geoană has been profiled for nearly two years as a potential presidential candidate, being in a constant image campaign with almost daily media appearances and political profile events throughout the country, all under the aegis of NATO.

Yet, Geoană has consistently maintained ambiguity regarding a possible presidential candidacy and has refused to clearly state whether he will enter the electoral campaign.

When asked by journalists on several occasions if he will run for the presidential elections, Geoană has consistently avoided a clear answer but has launched a book about „the battle for Romania” („The Battle for Romania’s Future. Thoughts of a Romanian at the top of NATO”), stated that „soon we will discuss a plan for Romania,” and is consistently measured in opinion polls for the presidential elections.