Uniunea Salvați România

Logo of the USR

Uniunea Salvați România (USR for short; German  "Union Rettet Romania" ) is a political party in Romania. It positions itself in the center-right, its most important topic is the fight against corruption.

history

Nicușor Dan, founder of "Save Bucharest" and first chairman of the USR (2016-17)

The forerunner of the USR was the civic association "Save Bucharest" (Asociația "Salvați Bucureștiul") , which was only active at the municipal level . Since it was founded in 2006, it has campaigned against the demolition of listed houses and the construction of high-rise buildings in historic districts of the capital, as well as for the preservation of green spaces. Under the leadership of the mathematics professor Nicuşor Dan , he led a number of administrative court proceedings against building projects that the city administration had approved under the mayor Sorin Oprescu . Nicuşor Dan ran for the office of Lord Mayor in the Bucharest local elections in 2012 and received 8.5% of the vote.

Since the conditions for voting are easier for parties than for associations, the initiative founded the Uniunea Salvați Bucureștiul (USB; "Union Rettet Bucharest") in 2015 . In the local elections in 2016, Dan ran again as a candidate for mayor and this time came in second place with 30.5%. The USB was then the second largest force in the Bucharest City Council with 15 of the 55 seats.

Dan Barna, party leader since 2017

In the run-up to the Romanian parliamentary elections in December 2016 , the party expanded to the national level and founded the USR in August 2016. In the election, the new party got 8.9% of the vote nationwide and 30 of the 329 seats in the House of Representatives and 13 of 136 in the Senate. The USR supported the mass protests against corruption in February 2017 as well as in June and August 2018. Nicuşor Dan resigned the party leadership in June 2017. Dan Barna was elected to succeed him.

For the 2019 European elections , the USR formed an electoral alliance with the PLUS party of the former Romanian Prime Minister and EU Commissioner Dacian Cioloș . This alliance received a total of 22.4% of the vote, giving the USR four of the 32 Romanian seats in the European Parliament .

Alignment

The political scientists Marina Popescu and Sorina Soare describe the USR as a protest party of the discontented middle class, which regards established parties as corrupt and incompetent. The party deliberately does not take a position on some important political issues. Your candidates often come from the business world and civil society and represent different ideological tendencies.

The focus of the program is on the fight against corruption. The USR supports the work of the National Anti-Corruption Authority (DNA). She strongly opposes attempts by the governing coalition made up of the PSD and ALDE to use “emergency ordinances” (ordonanță de urgență) to amend the penal code and the code of criminal procedure in order to protect suspected corruption.

In addition, the party chairman Dan Barna describes the position of the USR as "in general (...) center-right", particularly with regard to economic policy, while it stands in the center on socio-political issues. The party also has roots in environmental protection, especially in its commitment to the resumption of gold mining in Roșia Montană . However, she does not want to call herself a green party, because they are mostly perceived as more left-wing. She does not position herself clearly on the question of LGBT rights: On the one hand, she does not see the time for the introduction of same-sex marriage in Romania yet. On the other hand, it boycotted the referendum in October 2018 , with which the Coaliția pentru family (“Coalition for the family”) wanted to stipulate in the constitution that marriage can only be concluded between a man and a woman.

At the European level, the USR has been a member of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE) since 2019 . Previously, Călin Popescu-Tăriceanu's Romanian ALDE party had left the European party at the insistence of Guy Verhofstadt . The USR had refused to belong to the same association as the Romanian ALDE, which it considers corrupt. According to Dan Barna, the USR can best be compared to the La République en Marche (LREM) party of French President Emmanuel Macron . In the European Parliament she is a member of the Renew Europe group, which was formed by the previous ALDE group , the French LREM and the Romanian alliance USR-PLUS.

Web links

Commons : Uniunea Salvați România  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Party website

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Alan Siaroff: Comparative European party system. An Analysis of Parliamentary Elections Since 1945. 2nd edition, Abingdon (Oxon) / New York 2019, section Romania .
2. ↑ Volker Pabst: Romania undermines the rule of law. In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung (online), November 18, 2018.
3. ^ Marina Popescu, Sorina Soare: For things to remain the same, things will have to change. Party regulation as a form of engineering party competition and political legitimacy in Romania. In: Fernando Casal Bértoa, Ingrid van Biezen: The Regulation of Post-Communist Party Politics. Routledge, London 2017.
4. ↑ Martin Sieg: The Romanian Council Presidency of the EU. In: KAS country reports , January 7, 2019.
5. ↑ ^{a b} Georgi Gotev: Dan Barna: Save Romania Union similar to Macron's En Marche. In: Euractiv.com , February 21, 2018.
6. ↑ USR will join the European liberal party ALDE. ACT Media, June 24, 2019.
7. ^ Romania's Liberal Democrats pull out of ALDE Europe. Romania-Insider.com, June 3, 2019.
8. ↑ Ghinea: USR are discuții active cu partidul european ALDE. G4Media.ro, June 15, 2018
9. ↑ ALDE Group with name change. In: Allgemeine Deutsche Zeitung für Romania , June 14, 2019.