Greater Romania Party

{{Politics of Romania}}

The party was founded in 1991 by Tudor, who was formerly known as a "court poet" of communist dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu,{{Citation |first1=Georgi |last1=Verbeeck |first2=Mariana |last2=Hausleitner |title=Cultural Memory and Legal Responses: Holocaust Denial in Belgium and Romania |work=Facing the Catastrophe: Jews and Non-Jews in Europe During World War II |publisher=Berg |year=2011 |page=238}} and his literary mentor, the writer Eugen Barbu, one year after Tudor launched the România Mare weekly magazine, which remains the most important propaganda tool of the PRM. Tudor subsequently launched a companion daily newspaper called Tricolorul or Ziarul Tricolorul. The party claimed to be center-left and national.{{cite web | url=https://dexonline.ro/definitie/P.R.M. | title=Dexonline }} (The historical expression Greater Romania refers to the idea of recreating the former Kingdom of Romania which existed during the interwar period. Having been the largest entity to bear the name of Romania, the frontiers were marked with the intent of uniting most territories inhabited by ethnic Romanians into a single country; and it is now a rallying cry for Romanian nationalists. Due to internal conditions under Communism after World War II, the expression's use was forbidden in publications until 1990, after the Romanian Revolution.) The party's initial success was partly attributed to the deep rootedness of Ceaușescu's national communism in Romania.{{Citation |first=Michael |last=Shafir |title=Memories, Memorials and Membership: Romanian Utilitarian Anti-Semitism and Marshal Antonescu |work=Romania Since 1989: Politics, Economics, and Society |publisher=Lexington Books |year=2004 |page=71}} The party was accused of promoting anti-Romani sentiments.{{cite web | url=https://www.crwflags.com/fotw/flags/ro%7Dprm.html | title=Greater Romania Party, Romania }}

Both the ideology and the main political focus of the Greater Romania Party (PRM) are reflected in frequently strongly nationalistic articles written by Tudor. The party has called for the outlawing of the ethnic Hungarian party, the Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania (UDMR), for allegedly plotting the secession of Transylvania.Cinpoeș, Radu. "[http://library.fes.de/pdf-files/id-moe/09408.pdf The Extreme Right in Contemporary Romania]" (p. 5) October 2002. Accessed 31 July 2014.

PRM promotes the idea of a "Greater Romania" that would bring together all the territories populated by Romanians in neighboring countries (Ukraine and Moldova).{{cite news|language=fr|author1=Antonela Capelle-Pogacean and Nadège Ragaru|title=La dérive contestataire en Roumanie et en Bulgarie|publisher=Le courrier des pays de l'Est|number=1054|year=2006|url=http://www.cairn.info/revue-le-courrier-des-pays-de-l-est-2006-2-page-44.htm|pages=44–51}} It especially calls for the annexation of Moldova.{{cite web|language=fr|first=Michael|last=Minkenberg|title=A l'Est, l'obsession des frontières|url=https://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/2011/01/MINKENBERG/20033|website=Le Monde diplomatique|date=2011-01-01}}

The party has praised and shown nostalgia for both the military dictatorship of Axis ally Ion Antonescu, whom they consider a hero or even a saint,{{Citation |first=Michael |last=Shafir |title=Denying the Shoah in Post-Communist Eastern Europe |work=Holocaust Denial: The Politics of Perfidy |publisher=De Gruyter |year=2012 |page=33}}{{Citation |first=Ruth Ellen |last=Gruber |title=East-Central Europe |work=American Jewish Year Book 2002 |publisher=American Jewish Committee |year=2002 |page=471}} and the communist regime of Ceaușescu.{{Citation |first=Janusz |last=Bugajski |title=Nationalist Majority Parties: The Anatomy of Ethnic Domination in Central and Eastern Europe |work=The Politics of National Minority Participation in Post-Communist Europe |publisher=EastWest Institute |year=2000 |page=75}} The party rejected the 2006 Tismăneanu report on the communist dictatorship in Romania as a manipulation of history.{{Citation |first=Alina |last=Hogea |title=Coming to Terms with the Communist Past in Romania: An Analysis of the Political and Media Discourse Concerning the Tismăneanu Report |journal=Studies of Transition States and Societies |volume=2 |issue=2 |pages=22–23}}

In 2003, Tudor said he would no longer engage in discourse against Jews and Judaism or deny the Holocaust (see Corneliu Vadim Tudor). He also said that he had become, in his own words, a "philo-Semite". In subsequent months he and some of his supporters travelled to Poland to visit the Auschwitz concentration camp; and, despite strong objections from the family of slain Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and many Jewish organisations,{{cite news |title=Dedication of Romanian Statue of Rabin a Ploy |url=http://www.adl.org/PresRele/ASInt_13/4442_13.htm |publisher=Anti-Defamation League |date=16 January 2004 |access-date=3 March 2006 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060602113937/http://www.adl.org/PresRele/ASInt_13/4442_13.htm |archive-date=2 June 2006 |url-status=dead }} Tudor illegally erected a statue in memory of Rabin in the city of Brașov (for which he was found guilty and fined). During this period, Tudor hired Nati Meir, a Jewish advisor, who ran and won as a PRM candidate for the Romanian Chamber of Deputies. Tudor also hired an Israeli public relations firm, Arad Communications, to run his campaign.{{cite web |url=http://www1.yadvashem.org/about_yad/press_room/press_releases/arad.html |title=Yad Vashem has issued the following statement regarding the business relationship between Israeli public relations entrepreneur Eyal Arad and the leader of the Greater Romania party, Vadim Tudor |date=14 March 2004 |publisher=Yad Vashem}}{{cite web |url=http://www.romanianjewish.org/en/index_fcer4_06.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20051028213548/http://romanianjewish.org/en/index_fcer4_06.html |url-status=usurped |archive-date=October 28, 2005 |title=Appeal |work=The Romanian Jewish Community}}

In 2013, Friedrich Ebert Foundation described the party as neolegionary.{{cite web | url=https://moldova.europalibera.org/a/25027842.html | title=Ofensiva radicalilor | work=Radio Europa Liberă | date=26 June 2013 | last=Totok | first=William}}

Economically, PRM proposes social-democratic measures, speaking of "the equality of chances for all citizens, human solidarity and family values" and of "the development of national economy as a condition for a decent living for all citizens", and being in favour of the state’s intervention in economy.{{cite journal| url=https://www.sar.org.ro/polsci/?p=605 | title=The Ideological Institutionalization of the Romanian Party System | journal=Romanian Journal of Political Science | first1=George |last1=Jiglău|first2= Sergiu|last2= Gherghina|volume= 11 |issue= 1 |year= 2011}}

In 2024, the current president of the party, Victor Iovici, declared that the party is "centrist, with a patriotic orientation" and that "it collaborates with both left-wing and right-wing patriotic parties, as long as they are moderate and not extremist".{{Cite web|url=https://a3alexandria.ro/2024/04/09/video-prm-sustine-candidatii-psd-la-alegerile-locale-in-teleorman/|title= PRM SUSȚINE CANDIDAȚII PSD LA ALEGERILE LOCALE ÎN TELEORMAN|date=April 9, 2024}}

• Corneliu Vadim Tudor (1991–2015)
• Emil Străinu (2015–2016)
• Victor Iovici (2017–present)

Note:

¹ PNG-CD competed on PRM ballot, thus gaining 1 MEP.

{{Reflist}}

• {{in lang|ro}} [http://www.romaniamare.org/ Greater Romania Party]
• {{in lang|ro}} [http://www.ziarulromaniamare.ro/ România Mare (magazine)] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160207172214/http://www.ziarulromaniamare.ro/ |date=2016-02-07 }}
• {{in lang|ro}} [http://www.ziartricolorul.ro/ Tricolorul (magazine)] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150103031210/http://www.ziartricolorul.ro/ |date=2015-01-03 }}

{{Romanian political parties}}

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Category:1991 establishments in Romania

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