Romanian parliament sees evidence of election meddling, committee says

BUCHAREST (Reuters) - Romania's annulled presidential election was the target of cyber attacks, misinformation and propaganda, a parliamentary committee said late on Tuesday after reviewing confidential data from the country's foreign intelligence service.

Romania's top court annulled the presidential election two days before the second and final round of voting on Dec. 8 after the shock victory of a relatively unknown far-right NATO critic in the first round.

The court reached its decision based on five documents declassified by the EU and NATO state's top security council, which alleged Russian meddling but provided little concrete evidence of direct involvement. Russia has denied any interference.

On Tuesday, the foreign intelligence service (SIE) presented more of its findings to a parliamentary committee in charge of overseeing it.

"There were cyber attacks meant to influence the fairness of the election, particularly from Russia, to influence the public agenda by using artificial intelligence and aggressive online promotion," commission chief Mihai Weber said in a statement.

"There were misinformation and propaganda campaigns to support Eurosceptic candidates, who were favoured compared with other competitors."

The European Commission opened formal proceedings on Tuesday against social media firm TikTok over its suspected failure to limit election interference, notably in the Romanian vote.

Meanwhile, four pro-European Romanian parties will continue talks on Wednesday to form a coalition government after the Dec. 1 parliamentary election in which three ultranationalist and hard-right groupings, some with overt pro-Russian sympathies, won more than a third of the seats.

Coalition talks hit a snag on Monday when opposition centrist Save Romania Union (USR) demanded clarity over 2025 taxation and spending plans.

The other three parties, the ruling leftist Social Democrats and centre-right Liberals, alongside the ethnic Hungarian party, which could cobble together a small majority without USR, said on Tuesday they would lower the deficit to 7% of economic output next year from an estimated 8.6% in 2024 - the EU's highest - without specifying how.

Fitch lowered Romania's rating outlook to negative from stable on Wednesday, saying the political uncertainty raised concern about the country's ability to lower the deficit.

"The durability of such a coalition is uncertain and the new presidential election, likely to be scheduled for March 2025 at the earliest, will maintain high political uncertainty, and will likely also delay the implementation of fiscal consolidation measures," Fitch said.

Romania is rated one step above investment grade by all three major ratings agencies.

(Reporting by Luiza Ilie; Editing by Kate Mayberry)