Super Sunday 2025:
The Polish, Romanian and Portuguese Elections and what it means for the EU
Thomas R Ullmann
May 18, 2025
Update: early results and reactions
• Marches planned on 25th May by both the liberal Civic Coalition party as well as the radical-right in Poland, prior to the second round.
• Centre-right party wins, but falls short of majority in Portugal with record far-right gains. A concerning shot across the bow. A possible coalition with the pro-business Liberal Initiative will still likely fall short of a majority. What looks likely is a minority government and the risk of political stasis risking yet further support for the far-right in the future.
• Bucharest mayor Dan on course to win Romanian presidency, the pro Europe candidate appears to have won convincingly. Last year’s elections had been cancelled as a result of likely notable Russian interference. The far-right candidate has cast doubt on the current election though with no evidence to hand.
Overview, contests and consequences
Sunday, 18 May 2025 has been billed as Europe's Super Sunday, with three pivotal ball lots—Portugal’s third snap parliamentary election in as many years, Poland’s first-round presidential vote, and Romania’s unprecedented rerun presidential run-off—all taking place within a single day. The simultaneity of these contests offers a rare, synchronised snapshot of political realignments across Europe's north-east, south-west and eastern periphery.
Although the three contests differ in constitutional design and local context, they are united by a common set of anxieties: war on the Union’s borders, the rising salience of migration, and a sharpened debate about the limits of Brussels’s authority.
This article dissects each election in turn, profiles the principal contenders, and maps the broader continental stakes.
1
Poland: First Round of the Presidential Election
The presidency in Poland is not merely ceremonial: the head of state can veto legislation and shape foreign and defence policy. For the reform minded government of Prime Minister Don ald Tusk, replacing outgoing conservative President Andrzej Duda is therefore sine qua non for completing the rollback of PiSera institutional changes[1]. The field is fragmented but coalesces around four personalities.
Rafał Trzaskowski (Civic Platform)
Warsaw’s cosmopolitan mayor campaigns on an unabashedly proEuropean platform: deeper integration, liberalised social policy, and a 5 % GDP defence target[2]. His technocratic style—some say aloof—recalls Macron’s 2017 bid, a comparison Trzaskowski himself courts. Critics on the right accuse him of elitism and of privileging urban Poland over the “Bclass” periphery.
Trzaskowski (pictured) is the favourite to win the election. Photograph:
Paweł Supernak/EPA
Karol Nawrocki (independent, backed by PiS)
A 42 year old historian who made his name at the Museum of the Second World War, Nawrocki offers continuity with nationalist rhetoric minus PiS’s baggage. He promises lower taxes, a partial clawback of the EU’s Green Deal, and a harder line on migration and LGBTQ rights. His tenure at the Institute of National Remembrance has drawn criticism for selective historiography that downplays Polish complicity in wartime atrocities.
Sławomir Mentzen (Confederation)
Occupying the hard libertarian-nativist niche, Mentzen is famous for the “five no—s”: no gays, no abortions, no Jews, no EU, no taxes[3]. Recent polling places him third, yet his incendiary social media persona has dragged the debate rightwards. Mentzen’s depiction of Ukrainian refugees as “economic freeloaders”[4] has drawn rebuke from Jewish and human rights organisations.
Other figures
Szymon Hołownia, speaker of the Sejm and founder of Polska 2050, presents an ecosocial democratic alternative but remains a longshot.
Romania: Presidential Run-Off Rerun
After the annulment of last November’s tainted vote, Romanians return to the polls in a binary choice that pundits frame as “mathematician versus hooligan”[5]. The presidency
2
wields outsized influence over foreign and security policy in a NATO frontline state, with Romania bordering Ukraine.
Street child, 2014. Poverty remains an issue in Romania. Taken by Thomas Ullman
George Simion (AUR)
Simion’s ultra nationalist Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR) blends Trumpist performativity with Orthodox moralism. He rails against “Brussels diktats” and proposes Meloni sation—a metaphor for tearing down EU structures. Investigations trace his media amplification to proKremlin networks in Romania and Moldova[6]. Critics fear democratic backsliding akin to Hungary should he prevail.
Nicuşor Dan (Independent)
An MIT trained mathematician and Bucharest mayor, Dan entered politics through anti corruption activism. Praised for evidence-based governance, he nonetheless faces scepticism from rural voters who view him as detached from everyday hardships. Dan brands the election a referendum on Romania’s Western alignment.
Portugal: Third Snap Legislative Election
Portugal’s semi proportional system all but guarantees coalition bargaining. A year after a razorthin AD minority was toppled in a confidence vote over a family-linked consultancy, the same protagonists square off again[8].
Democratic Alliance (AD)—Luís Montenegro
Montenegro positions himself as a conservative moderniser: tax relief, tighter migration controls, and housing supply reforms. The opposition alleges conflicts of interest surrounding Spinumviva, a data protection firm formerly under his family[7].
Socialist Party (PS)—Pedro Nuno Santos
Santos seeks to reconsolidate the centre-left after António Costa’s 2023 resignation amid an unproven influence-peddling probe. His eco-Keynesian programme emphasises public investment and rent caps but struggles against voter fatigue.
Chega—André Ventura
Ventura’s farright Chega maintains third place with populist calls for chemical castration of rapists and mass deportations of irregular migrants. Internal scandals—from expense-fund abuse to allegations of racist hate speech[7]—have stalled earlier momentum.
3
Smaller Parties
The Liberal Initiative (IL), Livre, the Communists, and Left Bloc each target niche electorates, shaping post election arithmetic rather than vying for the premiership.
What does this mean for Europe as a whole?
Sunday’s verdicts will determine whether 2025 becomes another punctuation mark in Eu rope’s drift toward ideological polarisation or the start of a counter-reaction that recentres the project on liberal cooperation.
A Tale of Two Trajectories
• Centrist Upswing. If polling frontrunner Rafał Trzaskowski captures the Polish presidency and either Montenegro or Santos denies Chega real leverage in Lisbon, the backbone Paris-Berlin-Warsaw would be further strengthened. That coalition augmented by Madrid and, potentially, a pro EU Prague would control roughly two-thirds of the Union's GDP and population. The balance of power inside the European Council would tilt toward Macron Style souveraineté européenne: joint defence procurement, deeper capital-market union, and a more robust migration-burden sharing scheme. Crucially, a liberal Poland would deprive Viktor Orbán of his main veto ally, rendering Budapest's obstructionism a nuisance rather than an existential threat.
• An Island of Illiberalism. A George Simion win in Romania-especially if paired with a strong Chega showing or an unexpected runoff surge by Mentzen in Poland-would turn that map on its head. Illiberal executives would then govern contiguous territory from the Baltic to the Black Sea (Estonia excepted) and from the Carpathians to the Adriatic. Even without a blocking minority, that ’island ’ could gum up unanimity files Ukraine accession, the 2026 budget top-up, climate border tariffs-by trading mutual vetoes. The European Parliament elected in June 2024 already hosts the largest hard right caucus in its history; three fresh national victories would normalise that posture at the Council level.
Net Direction: More or Less Extreme?
Empirically, support for far-right lists across the EU plateaued at about 22% of the vote in 2024, down slightly from its 2019 peak. Yet the dispersion is widening: extremes consolidate power where governance failures and cultural insecurity intersect, while moderates prove resilient where welfare states buffered the energy-price shock. In that sense Europe is both more and less radical: the mean is drifting mildly inward, but the tails are fattening.
Super Sunday thus functions as a tipping-point referendum on which vector dominates the 2025-2029 cycle. A liberal night would entrench a multi-speed but fundamentally integrationist Union; a nationalist sweep would institutionalise veto politics and push Brussels into defensive minimalism. The outcome will not decide whether Europeans become more extreme in absolute terms, but rather whether the centres of decision-making migrate toward the edges or stay anchored in a pro-European middle.
[1] S. Jones, J. Henley and J. Krupa, “Runoffs, reruns and rightwingers: Europe prepares for electoral ‘super Sunday’”, The Guardian, 14 May 2025. Online: accessed 17 May 2025.
[2] M. Maciag, C. Sevgili and J. Kotowska, “Poland election: what you need to know”, Reuters, 16 May 2025.
[3] “Presidential candidate reports far right rival to prosecutors for antisemitic remarks during TV debate”, Notes from Poland, 29 April 2025.
[4] “Ukrainian refugees ’collateral’ in Polish presidential election”, The Times, 14 May 2025.
[5] J. Henley and A. Popoviciu, “‘Between a mathematician and a Trump Loving hooligan’: Romania’s stark presidential choice”, The Guardian, 17 May 2025.
[6] V. Olari, “How proKremlin networks shaped Romania’s 2025 election”, DFRLab, 16 May 2025.
[7] Reuters Staff, “Portugal’s election: what are the parties running on Sunday?”, 15 May 2025.
[8] A. HernándezMorales, “How to watch Portugal’s election like a pro”, Politico Europe, 16 May 2025.