Do we like them?

Do we like Nicușor Dan?

Our score: 6 out of 10. Nothing harmful turned up, but he dodges on LGBTQ+ rights and our file on him is thinner than we'd like.

Nicușor Dan is Romania's president. He is not a career party man. In 2017 he was head of the Save Romania Union (USR), the party that grew out of his civic work, according to PinkNews's timeline of his record on LGBTQ+ issues.

On the harm check, the record is quiet rather than bad. PinkNews reports he did not vote on the 2017 marriage-definition issue in parliament. He said he voted in the failed 2018 referendum on banning same-sex marriage but wouldn't say how, calling himself “a technocrat”. In March 2025 he said politicians should be “mediators of this debate” on civil partnerships and marriage. That's a dodge, not a campaign against anyone, and we found nothing from him on trans people.

The recent mess is political, not personal. Romania's government fell on 5 May 2026 to a no-confidence motion backed by PSD and AUR. Dan then nominated MEP Eugen Tomac as prime minister in early June. Tomac's nomination was withdrawn on 14 June, and parliament rejected Adrian Veștea's cabinet with 189 votes against, when 233 were needed. By late August Dan conceded there wasn't enough support for a technocrat government.

On the good side, as Bucharest's mayor in March 2022 he fronted a benefit concert for Ukraine. Agerpres reported it raised over 750,000 euros. It's one clear act of help to people in a crisis, and it's the only charity item we could properly pin down.

Here's the gap: there's a dispute with the electoral authority over his 2025 campaign money in Romanian headlines. We couldn't open that reporting, so we've left it out rather than guess. What we could read shows a politician who talks about settling things and keeps getting stuck in coalition arithmetic, with no sign of the grievance politics we screen for. Treat the score as provisional.