Romanian Nationalist Party to Start Operating in Moldova

The Alliance for the Union of Romanians, AUR announced on Monday that it plans to open branches in neighbouring Moldova as part of its campaign to reunify the country with Romania.

The AUR, which has 47 MPs in the 465-seat Romania parliament, is a nationalist party with a religious-based, anti-LGBT orientation and wants to impose a conservative, "patriotic" education system.

"We will start the AUR Moldova political project on March 27," said the leader of the party, George Simion, in a live video broadcast on Facebook on Monday.

The date has a historical significance as the Moldovan parliament voted on March 27, 1918, to reunify with Romania. Moldova, known as Bessarabia, was the eastern part of the Moldovan Principality, which was split between the Tsarist Empire and the Ottoman Empire in 1812.

On Sunday evening, Simion tried to cross the Romania-Moldova border, but the border police turned him back.

Simon was expelled from Moldova and declared persona non grata for five years in October 2018 by the Migration Bureau of Moldova, after a request from the Moldovan intelligence services.

Simion asked the Moldovan authorities to intervene and allow him into the country.

"I am a Romanian official, and I am waiting for help from the Foreign Affairs Ministry because I have a diplomatic passport," he said.

"I was a civic activist when I could not enter. Now I am a parliamentarian, and I did not violate any of Moldova's laws. Such a thing is inadmissible," he added.

The only Moldovan institution to reply was the presidency led by Maia Sandu, which said that Simion has to follow the legal path in his case, which has been pending for about two-and-a-half years in the Moldovan courts.

"The Moldovan...