Family with a child, we are looking for plan B for our future! We do not want to live in a Romania on the edge of democracy
The thought of leaving the country is no longer a fantasy. It's a real discussion, with luggage almost made. It's a solution that no one wants, but it seems inevitable. Photo: Shutterstock
I'm a parent. Not a politician, not an analyst, not a geopolitical strateg. I am a man who sends his child to school in the morning and wants the evening, when he pulls the door behind him, to find the same “at home”: a free, stable, worthy country. And today, after the first round of the 2025 presidential elections in Romania, I can not say that I feel the same. The insecurity of tomorrow has installed as a deaf and hard to drive away.
An extremist candidate, open friend of Russia, won the first round. In the second place, at a great distance, a pro-European independent, a timid voice in a screaming world. And between these two poles our future is playing now. And, above all, that of our children.
What does it mean to live with Russia at the door
For some, speeches about Russian influence seem abstract. But for parents who hold their children in the evening, listening to the news about bombing in Ukraine, fear is real. The borders no longer seem to be unheard of. A president with pro-Kremlin sympathies can transform Romania into a docile pawn into a new authoritarian, iliberal order. And when human rights become a joke, schools can become propaganda spaces, hospitals and playgrounds – ruins, and freedom – a story from old books.
What kind of life is waiting for my child in a Romania that comes out of the area of European influence? What kind of future can you build in a country that could close the borders, in the name of “protection” and “national identity”? Where can he learn? Where can he work? What can I dream about?
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