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By Luiza Ilie
BUCHAREST (Reuters) - Romanian presidential candidate Victor Ponta said on Monday he would stop Ukrainian grain exports via the country's Black Sea ports if elected to protect local farmer, but pledged to defend neighbouring Moldova in case of a Russian attack.
Romania, a European Union and NATO member state, will hold a re-run of a presidential election in May, after a December vote was cancelled over accusations of Russian meddling, which Moscow denies. Bucharest's role in NATO and the EU, as well as its aid to neighbouring Ukraine are in the spotlight.
Romania's president has a semi-executive role, which includes chairing the council that decides on military aid and defence spending, and can veto European Union votes that require unanimity.
Ponta, 52, is a former leftist prime minister whose politics have turned ultranationalist. According to opinion polls, he has a chance of making it into the run-off vote, alongside hard right opposition leader George Simion, the replacement candidate for the banned far-right frontrunner in the cancelled vote.
Romania has helped to export roughly 29 million tons of Ukrainian grain through its Black Sea port of Constanta in the three years since Moscow's invasion, becoming Ukraine's main alternative route out.
"There has been a policy of favouring Ukrainian grain in terms of access to port facilities in recent years, at the detriment of Romanian grain, and Romanian farmers were greatly affected by it," Ponta told Reuters in an interview.
He said he would uphold other measures already in effect to support Ukraine, including the transit of weapons and the training of Ukrainian pilots.
SUPPORTS 'RADICAL' US CHANGES
Ponta, who quit as prime minister in 2015 after a deadly nightclub fire, and whose first presidential bid in 2014 was thwarted by his government's bureaucratic hurdles to voting by Romanians abroad, said he backs what he calls "radical change" taking place in the United States.
The cancellation of December's election has placed Romania at the centre of a dispute between Europe and U.S. President Donald Trump's administration over free speech and suppressing political opponents.
"We must just be pragmatic and understand that in Washington things have changed fundamentally, and ... that we can have a relationship based on different criteria: pragmatism, common interest and military collaboration," Ponta said.
"Thank God I play golf, and thank God I don't beat President Trump at it. He beats me, barely, but he beats me."
He said he would support increasing Romanian defence spending to over 3% of economic output in 2026, from a planned 2.5% this year, and said he would focus on building up the flagship Mihail Kogalniceanu military air base, which hosts American troops.
Ponta said his "Romania first" approach in the EU and NATO would focus on supporting EU accession for Moldova and the Western Balkans, as well as focusing on strategic partnerships with Poland and Turkey, the main military power in the Black Sea.
"I believe Romania can support Moldova in case of aggression," he said. "Realistically, Romania cannot support another country, be it Ukraine or another. But it has the capacity to do that for Moldova."
Ponta also said he did not support the introduction of civil unions for same sex couples.
(Reporting by Luiza Ilie; Editing by Sharon Singleton)
