The People's Movement Party (, PMP) is an extra-parliamentary

national-conservative National conservatism is a nationalism, nationalist variant of conservatism that concentrates on upholding National identity, national and cultural identity, communitarianism and the public role of religion. It shares aspects of traditionalist c ...

and social conservative

political party A political party is an organization that coordinates candidates to compete in a particular area's elections. It is common for the members of a party to hold similar ideas about politics, and parties may promote specific political ideology, ...

Romania Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern and Southeast Europe. It borders Ukraine to the north and east, Hungary to the west, Serbia to the southwest, Bulgaria to the south, Moldova to ...

History

The PMP was created as a political foundation in March 2013 by supporters of then incumbent state president Traian Băsescu, following his break with the leadership of the Democratic Liberal Party (PDL) around former Senate president Vasile Blaga. It was transformed into a political party in July 2013 and re-launched on 29 January 2014. The PMP identified itself as

Christian democratic Christian democracy is an ideology inspired by Christian social teaching to respond to the challenges of contemporary society and politics. Christian democracy has drawn mainly from Catholic social teaching and neo-scholasticism, as well ...

and liberal in 2013. The new party's chairman after June 2014 was former minister of regional development and tourism and Băsescu's confidante Elena Udrea. Other notable members include former culture minister Theodor Paleologu, former foreign minister Teodor Baconschi, former minister of education Daniel Funeriu, or member of European Parliament (MEP) Cristian Preda, Băsescu's daughter and MEP Elena Băsescu. and former Foreign Minister and head of the presidential administration Cristian Diaconescu. In the 2014 European election, the party won 6.2% of the votes and two of Romania's 32 seats. Its

members of the European Parliament A member of the European Parliament (MEP) is a person who has been elected to serve as a popular representative in the European Parliament. When the European Parliament (then known as the Common Assembly of the European Coal and Steel Comm ...

Siegfried Mureșan and Cristian Preda joined the

European People's Party Group The European People's Party Group (EPP Group or simply EPP) is a political group of the European Parliament consisting of deputies (MEPs) from the member parties of the European People's Party (EPP). Sometimes it also includes independent ME ...

(EPP), although Preda has since been expelled from the party. On 12 September 2014, the PMP was admitted as a full member to the

European People's Party The European People's Party (EPP) is a European political party with Christian democracy, Christian democratic, liberal conservatism, liberal-conservative, and conservative member parties. A transnational organisation, it is composed of other p ...

(EPP). For the November 2014 presidential election, the PMP nominated Elena Udrea. She was also endorsed by the

Christian Democratic National Peasants' Party The Christian Democratic National Peasants' Party (, PNȚCD) is an agrarianism, agrarian and Christian democracy, Christian democratic list of political parties in Romania, political party in Romania. It claims to be the rightful successor of t ...

(PNȚCD). With 5.2% of the popular vote, she was placed fourth and did not qualify for the second round. The party asked its voters to endorse

Klaus Iohannis Klaus Werner Iohannis (; ; born 13 June 1959) is a Romanian politician, physicist, and former teacher who served as the fifth president of Romania from 2014 until his resignation in 2025. Prior to entering Politics of Romania, national politics, ...

of the National Liberal Party (PNL) in the runoff election. On 12 July 2016, Traian Băsescu announced that the National Union for the Progress of Romania (UNPR) would merge with PMP on 20 July 2016. Subsequently, the union between the two parties failed and PMP lost several representatives both in the Senate and in the Chamber of Deputies. In the 2020 legislative election, due to poor presence at the polling stations (33.30%) caused by the

coronavirus pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

, the party failed to earn 5% of the public vote and thereby failed to enter

parliament In modern politics and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: Representation (politics), representing the Election#Suffrage, electorate, making laws, and overseeing ...

. The episode was controversial to say the least as the party was very close to the threshold and had zero votes in several polling stations in which they had party representatives whose votes were nowhere to be found. As a result, the party contested the results and demanded recounting the votes in as many as 1,090 polling stations. Nonetheless, this demand was ultimately refused by the Central Electoral Bureau (, BEC). This failure led the party president, Eugen Tomac, to resign from the party's leadership. After a party congress held on 7 March 2021, Cristian Diaconescu was elected the new president and designated the party's candidate for the forthcoming 2024 Romanian presidential election. On 19 February 2022, Eugen Tomac returned to the presidency of the party. On 14 December 2023, Save Romania Union (USR), Force of the Right (FD) and the People's Movement Party officially announced the creation of a right-leaning

electoral alliance An electoral alliance (also known as a bipartisan electoral agreement, electoral pact, electoral agreement, electoral coalition or electoral bloc) is an association of political parties or individuals that exists solely to stand in elections. E ...

to contest in the 2024 elections. On 18 December, the alliance was formally named as United Right Alliance (ADU). In the

2024 European Parliament election The 2024 European Parliament election was held in the European Union (EU) between 6 and 9 June 2024. It was the tenth Elections to the European Parliament, parliamentary election since the 1979 European Parliament election, first direct electio ...

, the party's MEP Eugen Tomac was re-elected and subsequently joined Renew Europe group together with USR MEPs.

Ideology

When it was founded January 2014, the party identified itself as

conservative Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy and ideology that seeks to promote and preserve traditional institutions, customs, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civiliza ...

and economic liberal. However, in the later years, the party became more traditionalist. Nowadays, it opposes the immigration of foreigners into EU (especially of

Muslims Muslims () are people who adhere to Islam, a Monotheism, monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God ...

Marxism Marxism is a political philosophy and method of socioeconomic analysis. It uses a dialectical and materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to analyse class relations, social conflict, ...

socialism Socialism is an economic ideology, economic and political philosophy encompassing diverse Economic system, economic and social systems characterised by social ownership of the means of production, as opposed to private ownership. It describes ...

globalisation Globalization is the process of increasing interdependence and integration among the economies, markets, societies, and cultures of different countries worldwide. This is made possible by the reduction of barriers to international trade, th ...

, and

same-sex marriage Same-sex marriage, also known as gay marriage, is the marriage of two people of the same legal Legal sex and gender, sex. marriage between same-sex couples is legally performed and recognized in 38 countries, with a total population of 1.5 ...

. It has been described as right-wing populist and a supporter of Romanian–Moldovan unionism, and is positioned from

centre-right Centre-right politics is the set of right-wing politics, right-wing political ideologies that lean closer to the political centre. It is commonly associated with conservatism, Christian democracy, liberal conservatism, and conservative liberalis ...

right-wing Right-wing politics is the range of political ideologies that view certain social orders and hierarchies as inevitable, natural, normal, or desirable, typically supporting this position based on natural law, economics, authority, property ...