Hungarian Democratic Union of Romania (UDMR) Chairman Kelemen Hunor told AGERPRES on Friday that a discussion is necessary both in the ruling coalition and in the Supreme Council for National Defence (CSAT) not only about the annulment of the presidential election but also in the current geopolitical and international context.

At the same time, the UDMR leader believes, Romania must have a pragmatic approach and find communication channels with the Trump Administration, as a matter of 'first urgency.'

'First of all, there must be a very serious talk in the coming period among the coalition leaders, of course, and there must be established what the direction Romania wants to go is and what arguments it has. There haven't been any talks about foreign policy in the coalition lately, but this is something that we cannot avoid, we cannot prevent. Therefore, I believe this is the first phase, after which, of course, there needs to be a discussion in the CSAT - Crin Antonescu is right. It is up to the interim president, Ilie Bolojan, when he convenes a CSAT meeting, not necessarily and not only to talk about the election annulment, in this context, because probably there are several pieces of information and a new assessment can be made, but also a discussion in the geopolitical and international context is following and must take place. Romania must be pragmatic. At the moment, as far as I see it, it doesn't really have communication channels with the Trump Administration. This cannot stay this way. That is why I believe the first urgency is to find communication channels with the Trump Administration,' Kelemen Hunor explained.

According to the UDMR leader, for the United States of America, its own interests will come first, a context in which the Eastern Flank needs strengthening.

'The American forces, if withdrawn from Europe, from Germany, from Romania, from the other states, on medium term, on long term, in our point of view, it is a huge loss and the Eastern Flank must be strengthened with European troops. Therefore, a European defence must be built at a very high pace. Europe has lost a great deal of time, then Europe focused on things that meant little in this period and hasn't focused on what was important. It was well known that the game would reset in America and mostly America's interests would direct to the Pacific, China, and Europe would no longer be a priority or a first priority,' Kelemen Hunor said.

He added that Romania must have very close relations with its neighbours in this period.

'Romania must have and must find very close relations with its neighbours in this period, then with Poland, France, UK. (...) I believe that Romania can be an initiator in changing the approach a bit, as on this flank where we are and in the Black Sea region, we are still in an extremely important geographical position and we cannot be left without a point of view, without a stand. At the moment, we are like headstruck and we don't know where and how to act. This is the biggest problem,' the UDMR leader argued.

Last but not least, he drew the attention that Romania must have an extremely firm position about the annulment of the presidential election, in the context in which there are critics on the topic.

'We have elections ahead. We are being criticised almost one in two days for annulling the election. I believe that, from this point of view, Romania must have an extremely firm position. The election was voided because there were interventions and there is evidence for that and that evidence must be showed - what can be showed, of course - and we must not apologise for annulling the election. This does not mean we do not have those democratic values deeply assimilated, which VP Vance including is talking about. Nonetheless, in our point of view, we must know how to defend ourselves, to explain, to argue - that we haven't done this, well, not us, the Constitutional Court, has not done this against Romania, it has not ruled to void the election against the democratic values, against the West. We must know how to explain this,' the UDMR chairman said.

Social Democratic Party, National Liberal Party, Hungarian Democratic Union of Romania common candidate in the presidential election Crin Antonescu says that an urgent meeting of the Supreme Council for National Defence is needed and a meeting of pro-European leaders from Romania should be organised, pointing out that the discussion about a come-back of the strategic partnerships to the year 1997 is a serious issue. AGERPRES (RO - writing by: Catalina Matei; EN - writing: Adina Panaitescu)