Brussels (Belgium) (AFP) - The European Commission on Thursday said it had stepped up its monitoring of TikTok, after receiving information about possible Russian interference in Romania’s presidential election.

Authorities in Bucharest have alleged Russian meddling and “preferential treatment” by TikTok of the far-right candidate Calin Georgescu, who won the first-round vote. TikTok denied the claim, and Russia insisted it was not interfering in the election.

With tension mounting ahead of Sunday’s runoff, several thousand Romanians meanwhile rallied in the capital in support of pro-European candidate Elena Lasconi.

Waving European Union flags, they chanted “freedom!” and “Europe!”.

While stopping short of announcing an infringement by TikTok, the European Commission said the Chinese-origin video-sharing platform should “freeze and preserve” data related to the “actual or foreseeable systemic risks its service could pose on electoral processes and civic discourse in the EU”.

The European executive acts as the EU’s digital watchdog under the Digital Services Act (DSA), which came fully into force on February 17.

TikTok, owned by Chinese tech company ByteDance, must also retain internal documents and information about the design and functioning of its “recommender systems”, as well as information on the way it addresses the risk of “intentional manipulation”, the Commission said.

“We have already been cooperating with the Commission and will continue to do so,” a TikTok spokesperson said in a statement.

“We look forward to establishing the facts in light of some of the speculation and inaccurate reports we have seen.”

The Commission said its retention order related to “national elections in the European Union between 24 November 2024 until 31 March 2025”.

“The order follows information received by the Commission in the context of the ongoing Romanian elections, including recently declassified information pointing to foreign interference from Russia,” it added.

Moscow is regularly accused of orchestrating disinformation campaigns in favour of candidates that could be favourable to it, in the EU and elsewhere.

Romania – an EU and NATO member state – could elect its first far-right president in Sunday’s runoff.

The vote is being keenly watched, as the country neighbours Ukraine.

- Far-right surge -

Nationalist candidate Georgescu, a 62-year-old former civil servant, was a surprise winner in the first round on November 24. Centre-right candidate Lasconi came second.

Fears are rife that under Georgescu, Romania – increasingly of strategic importance since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine – will join the EU’s far-right bloc and undermine European unity against Moscow.

Bucharest pointed the finger at the Kremlin after claims of interference in the first-round vote, including suspicions of unbalanced treatment of candidates on TikTok, which Georgescu has used heavily.

Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova denied any meddling in Romania’s affairs.

“The campaign for the Romanian presidential election is accompanied by an unprecedented outburst of anti-Russian hysteria,” she said of the allegations. “We firmly reject all hostile attacks, which we consider absolutely groundless.”

Romania’s Supreme Council of National Defence last month alleged that TikTok had given “preferential treatment” to Georgescu, and said he benefited from “massive exposure” by not being labelled as a “political candidate”.

The situation, it said, requires “emergency measures” targeting the popular app, which has eight million users in the country, according to data supplied to the Commission by the company.

Georgescu was a relative unknown until a few months ago. He is currently followed by more than 530,000 people on TikTok, where his videos – against vaccinations, praising Russian President Vladimir Putin and calling for an end to aid to Ukraine – have garnered millions of “likes”.

His popularity has been seen as a protest vote against economic turbulence, but TikTok has also played “a decisive role” in his rise, Andrei Curararu, co-founder of the Moldova-based anti-disinformation Watchdog.md, told AFP.

He estimated that Georgescu’s clips were seen 52 million times in four days.

On November 29, the European Commission asked TikTok to detail how it analysed and mitigated the risk of information being manipulated, particularly via its “recommender systems”.