Croatia‘s example is being emulated: consumers are being urged to boycott supermarkets today in Romania, which faces the highest levels of inflation in the European Union. Bulgaria will follow on Thursday.

Bulgaria will follow on Thursday.

“Such price increases are unacceptable,” former presidential candidate Kalin Georgesku said last week in a Facebook video message. The Romanian candidate unexpectedly won the first round of the presidential election, which was called off due to suspicions of Russian interference in the campaign.

Kalin Georgesku urged Romanians to abandon big stores in favor of “local markets and neighborhood shops selling Romanian products.”

Inflation, which economic analysts say is linked to high debt and delayed reforms in a corrupt country, rose to 5.5 percent in 2024 after peaking at 14 percent in 2022. This situation fuelled the vote for right wing parties in recent elections.

In total, the three right-wing factions garnered one-third of the vote in the parliamentary elections in early December, tripling their share of 2020, when it was represented by one party, AUR.

The leader of the AUR, George Simion, joined the call for a boycott. “On February 10, I will join Romanians who say ‘Enough’ with the abuses of the big chains,” he said, denouncing “the huge profits” of foreign chains.

So far, there is no data to evaluate the success of this initiative.

In Croatia, the boycott at the end of January caused a sharp drop in sales. Other Balkan countries followed suit.

Romania’s government spoke of a “political” action that risks harming local producers whose products are on the shelves of large supermarkets.

But the Pro Agro agricultural union hopes that this protest movement “will raise awareness among consumers” and force the authorities to take action “against the domination of price-setting multinationals.”

On social media, users are urging people to refrain from calling for “isolationist parties” and encouraging voters to shop with a European flag in hand.

In neighbouring Bulgaria, Europe’s poorest country, inflation reached 15 percent in 2022. Several organizations are calling for a boycott on Thursday.

“On February 13, let’s show the traders that there is an angry civil society,” Velizar Encef, a former MP and former ambassador to Croatia, who is calling for a cap on basic foodstuffs, told reporters.