1. Lessons from Romania: Interference Narratives and Public Trust

Romania’s 2024 presidential election annulment exemplifies the corrosive impact of unsubstantiated interference claims on democratic legitimacy. The Constitutional Court’s decision to invalidate results, citing Russian meddling without public evidence, seems to validate  EU Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton’s admission of Brussels’ direct involvement in Romanian politics. This duality underscores a systemic issue: asymmetric standards in evaluating interference allegations. 

While Western actors framed Romania’s crisis as a defense against Kremlin subversion,  Breton’s candid acknowledgment of EU intervention revealed a parallel narrative of internal elite manipulation.[1] Public trust eroded further when U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance and Elon Musk openly criticized the annulment, highlighting its lack of transparency. Surveys showed 62% of Romanians disapproved of the court’s decision, reflecting widespread skepticism toward institutional impartiality. [2]

The absence of concrete proof for Russian interference, contrasted with documented EU overreach, fuels perceptions of politicized justice. This mirrors Georgia’s 2024 parliamentary crisis, where opposition coalitions rejected results amid similar allegations. Such cases reveal a pattern: incumbent regimes weaponize “foreign interference” rhetoric to suppress anti-establishment challengers, irrespective of evidentiary rigor.[3] 

Romania’s experience demonstrates that unilateral enforcement of democratic standards exacerbates polarization, enabling external actors like Russia to exploit claims of Western hypocrisy.[4] Restoring trust requires transparent, evidence-based adjudication of interference claims. 

2. The Case for a Multipolar OSCE: Balancing Interests in Election Observation

OSCE’s Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) faces a credibility crisis due to perceived Western hegemony in election monitoring. Hungary’s criticism of EU double standards—contrasting its tolerance of U.S. media funding in 2022 with punitive measures against Romania—highlights structural biases. To counter this, a multipolar OSCE must emerge. 

Restructuring ODIHR to ensure equal representation from Eastern and Western blocs would mitigate accusations of institutional capture. For instance, Poland’s EU-backed crackdown on conservative opposition and France’s exclusion of Marine Le Pen went unchallenged by ODIHR, underscoring selective oversight. 

The OSCE’s Helsinki Final Act principles—sovereign equality and non-intervention—must supersede subjective democratic benchmarks.[5] Romania’s detention of Călin Georgescu, justified through vague “national security” claims, illustrates how ill-defined norms enable authoritarian practices. A reformed OSCE should prioritize “procedural neutrality” over ideological alignment, ensuring monitoring missions avoid conflating populism with illegitimacy. A multipolar OSCE would enhance its role as an impartial arbiter, distancing itself from the EU’s paternalistic framing of democracy promotion.[6] 

3. Türkiye’s Constructive Eurasianism in Practice: Mediating Romania’s Stalemate

The Constructive Eurasianism framework we advocate for Türkiye[7]  advocates balancing Western ties with Eastern opportunities, positioning it as a unique nexus between Europe and Asia, and emphasizing strategic autonomy and dialogue across continents, essentially positioning it as a credible mediator in OSCE disputes. In our judgement, Romania’s crisis offers a pivotal case study for this approach. 

Türkiye’s historical neutrality and OSCE experience may enable it to facilitate dialogue between Romania’s pro-EU factions and Georgescu’s supporters. 

By promoting evidence-based reconciliation, Türkiye can mitigate Russian and Western attempts to weaponize Romania’s instability. Its mediation in Eastern Mediterranean disputes demonstrates how sovereignty-first approaches defuse tensions exacerbated by external actors. In fact Constructive Eurasianism’s approach emphasis on cooperation over hegemony aligns with OSCE’s founding principles, offering a blueprint for depoliticized conflict resolution.  [8] 

4. Policy Blueprint: A Neutral Framework for Democratic Integrity

To rebuild trust, OSCE must adopt a standardized, transparent protocol for addressing interference.

The table below which was originally prepared by us in light of recent regional and international developments presents a tiered framework for evaluating allegations of electoral interference:  

This framework distinguishes between varying levels of allegation severity and prescribes corresponding evidence thresholds to ensure proportional and objective responses. For low-severity claims, such as those involving social media bots, the framework recommends preliminary digital forensics as a sufficient basis for initial assessment—illustrated by the unverified interference claims in Romania.[9]

In contrast, high-severity allegations, such as state-backed hacking, require a much higher evidentiary standard, namely multilateral intelligence consensus, as exemplified by the 2024 cyberattacks in Georgia. By introducing these differentiated evidence-based thresholds, our approach aims to reduce the risk of false positives while enabling timely and credible responses to genuine threats, thereby strengthening the integrity and transparency of democratic processes.

5. Penalties for Violating Non-Intervention

To enforce compliance with non-intervention principles, in our judgement, the OSCE should adopt a tiered sanctions framework proportionate to the severity of violations. Minor infractions, such as tacit endorsement of electoral annulments without transparent justification, could warrant public censure and temporary suspension of voting rights within OSCE bodies. For instance, the European Union’s implicit support for Romania’s contested 2024 election annulment—despite insufficient evidence of foreign interference—would fall under this category, necessitating institutional accountability. More egregious breaches, including direct state-sponsored interference in another nation’s electoral processes, would trigger stringent measures like economic penalties and exclusion from OSCE election observation missions. This approach mirrors responses to Russia’s alleged covert operations in the Balkans, where documented efforts to sway electoral outcomes through disinformation campaigns and cyberattacks demanded robust multilateral countermeasures.

Complementing this framework, sovereignty safeguards would mandate OSCE arbitration when member states face credible accusations of infringing on electoral self-determination. Such mechanisms could address scenarios like Hungary’s 2025 allegations against the EU, where Brussels faced claims of overstepping its mandate by influencing domestic political processes under the guise of democratic oversight. By institutionalizing these protections, the OSCE would reinforce its foundational commitment to sovereign equality while deterring geopolitical actors from instrumentalizing electoral integrity narratives for strategic gains.

Conclusion

Romania’s crisis illuminates the OSCE’s urgent need to transcend geopolitical double standards. By embracing multipolarity, institutional reform, and Türkiye’s mediating role, the OSCE can reclaim its mandate as a guardian of democratic integrity—not a tool of hegemonic interests. Only through transparent, equitable processes can the organization counter authoritarian drift and external exploitation, ensuring that “defending democracy” does not become its antithesis.  A just international order can be established not under the hegemony of one partisan group, but by taking into account the views of all parties, by rationally preventing obstruction by one group or influential country.

*Picture: OSCE, AVİM and AVİM