| The Black Sea region is of huge geopolitical importance for both Russia and the West. Therefore, it is no small wonder that internal political battles in Romania, Bulgaria and Georgia are so fierce. The West is possibly already losing Georgia, a small country on the wrong side of the Black Sea. Although a majority of its population says it wants to join the EU, the country is not in NATO, and there is a real risk that Russian tanks could again roll towards Tbilisi. On the Western shore of the Black Sea, Bulgaria and Romania have been NATO members since 2004. In Bulgaria, a Russophile party, Vazrazhdane, prioritises a referendum to leave NATO. Currently, it is the third largest party, with 35 MPs out of a total of 240. Successive elections have failed to elect a government. In the last three years, Bulgarians have voted seven times in snap parliamentary elections, which did not produce a viable government. This is already a world record; an eighth vote may come early in 2025. But these successive elections have marked a steady rise in support of Vazrazhdane. In the first round of the Romanian presidential elections, Călin Georgescu stunned most of his compatriots and Romania’s allies by emerging as the leader with 22.9%, ahead of opposition centre-right candidate Elena Lasconi with 19.2%. Georgescu is a far-right, self-styled outsider critical of NATO and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Yesterday's parliamentary elections show that 70% of Romanians voted for pro-European mainstream parties, and 28% voted for the three far-right parties. This suggests that Georgescu may not win the presidency at the runoff. But it would be wrong to extrapolate the proportional vote of a parliamentary election to the majority vote for President. Romanians now fear a ‘Bulgarian’ scenario of repeated elections after this parliamentary vote, which would make forming a government difficult. | 
