34 Facts About George Simion

George-Nicolae Simion was born on 21 September 1986 and is a Romanian politician and civic activist.

George Simion is the founder and chairman of the Alliance for the Union of Romanians, the second largest party in both houses of parliament since 2024.

George Simion is currently a candidate in the 2025 Romanian presidential election.

In 2019, George Simion began to participate in politics, running as an independent candidate for the 2019 European Parliament election in Romania, in which he obtained 117,141 votes.

George Simion has been involved in several controversies, notably AUR's support for two former military officers who had allegedly repressed revolutionaries in the 1989 Romanian Revolution entering the Romanian Parliament or his participation in the 2019 disputes regarding the military cemetery in Valea Uzului.

George-Nicolae Simion was born on 21 September 1986 in Focsani, the capital of Vrancea County, Socialist Republic of Romania, to parents who were both economists; his father worked for the Romanian Development Bank.

In 1995, at the age of nine, George Simion attended the opening of Romania's first McDonald's restaurant, an event he later reflected upon as formative for his perceptions of Western capitalism's influence on post-Communist Romanian society.

George Simion completed his secondary education at Gheorghe Lazar National College in Bucharest, graduating in 2005.

George Simion then studied at the Faculty of Business and Administration at the University of Bucharest, where he obtained his bachelor's degree in 2008.

George Simion gained further public attention in 2009 when he on 3 March, the birthday of former president Ion Iliescu, lit candles in front of Iliescu's home in memory of the casualties of the Revolution and the June 1990 Mineriad.

George Simion referred to Illiescu as "the criminal of 1989" and was eventually held in custody of the police.

On 17 April 2011, George Simion founded Action 2012, a coalition of NGOs and civic associations advocating for the unification of Moldova and Romania.

In 2017, George Simion criticised the Romanian state for not preparing enough events to celebrate the centenary of the Great Union as other countries like Poland had done.

George Simion's activism caused outrage from Moldovan authorities, leading to multiple expulsions and entry bans.

On 14 May 2015, George Simion was declared persona non grata and barred for five years from the country on grounds of "endangering national security".

George Simion was briefly banned again for one day in February 2016.

George Simion began his political career on 12 January 2019, announcing his independent candidacy for the 2019 European Parliament election in Romania.

On his choice to run as an independent, George Simion expressed scepticism towards established political parties, concluding that the European Parliament election was the only election in which an independent was likely to win a seat due to the lower electoral threshold.

George Simion declared he would fight for the rights of the Romanian minorities, such as those in Serbia or Ukraine, as well as the protection of the rights of Romanian diaspora members working in the European Union.

George Simion expressed his intention to halt the country's illegal deforestation and start the construction of motorways better connecting Romania and Moldova.

George Simion promised to bring at least one child from every Romanian locality to the city of Brussels to teach them about the workings of the EU and to donate three-quarters of his salary as a Member of the European Parliament to projects in Romania or Moldova.

On 19 September 2019, the Alliance for the Union of Romanians was formally established, with George Simion initially serving as one of the two co-presidents, alongside Claudiu Tarziu.

George Simion ran to be voted in as party chairman, his only opponent being the then AUR deputy in the Constanta County Danut Aelenei.

George Simion got 784 votes while Aelenei received 38, resulting in George Simion becoming the party's sole chairman, having previously shared this position with Tarziu.

Georgescu, who Simion had endorsed for prime minister in 2020 and 2021, achieved a surprise victory in the first round with 22.9 per cent of the vote against USR candidate Elena Lasconi, with Simion announcing his endorsement of Georgescu for the second round on 8 December.

George Simion criticised the ruling, framing it as a coup d'etat orchestrated by the Romanian political elite.

George Simion doubted the integrity of the upcoming electoral processes.

The CEB approved his candidacy on the following day, which was the deadline for candidates to register, with George Simion stating "We passed the BEC, now let's see if we pass the CCR and return to democracy".

At the meeting, George Simion acknowledged and expressed regret about Romania's role in the Holocaust during World War II, promising to combat antisemitism and supported the expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank, emphasising what he described as "the historical right of the Jewish people to build and live in communities and cities in Judea and Samaria, the cradle of history of the Jewish people since the days of the Bible".

On 22 November 2024, following the election of Donald Trump as US president, George Simion expressed opposition to additional military aid to Ukraine, aligning with Trump's stances and advocated for a advocating for a negotiated end to Russo-Ukrainian War, which had escalated following the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

George Simion refuted these allegations, asserting that his prohibition was due to his "pro-Romanian activities" and advocacy for the rights of the Romanian minority in Ukraine.

In March 2025, George Simion acknowledged that the reunification between Romania and Moldova was his party's long-time goal, although it would only be achieved under international settlements and if both populations voted for such a move in referendums.

George Simion took part in the second inauguration of Donald Trump on 20 January 2025 in Washington, DC In February of that year, George Simion participated in the Conservative Political Action Conference in Maryland, engaging with international conservative figures such as Steve Bannon, Richard Grenell, Eduardo Bolsonaro and Nigel Farage.

George Simion ran in the 2024 Romanian presidential election but failed to advance in the first round of voting on 24 November after placing fourth.