Democracy & Europeanization

A great deal of Romania’s transition has taken place following the international models recommended by outside actors. Thus, IMF, Word Bank and the EU offered economic models, while NATO and the EU offered democratization and security models. Having assumed the EU accession is a national interest - virtually by the unanimity of parliamentary political forces - the pressure on successive governments to “stay the course` was tremendous.

Romania’s EU accession was more than a political process. It was a national obsession. Trapped in a confusing and apparently endless transition, Romanians needed a sense of direction the local political elite failed to provide. The ineffective state and the weakness of civil society created a Molotov cocktail of disillusions and low self-esteem. Since 1999, the starting year of the negotiations, the European project became the major project of Romanian society. EU meant more than the common market, the prospects of a new currency or development funds. It was by far the most serious of the many modernizing projects Romania had tried before. “Catching up with the West” has been the national obsession of the last two centuries. According to a series of Eurobarometer, trust in EU is at its highest in Romania compared to the rest of the EU countries. Although on a descending slope, the figure remains exceptional for a society traditionally characterized by chronic cynicism. Only the Army and the Orthodox Church enjoy a higher level of trust than the EU. As the army is not a player in times of peace and the church generally stays away from secular matters, Romanians’ expectations related to EU were very high. This was not Euro-enthusiasm. It was a kind of Euro-dependence.

Romania joined the EU January the 1st, 2007. This success paradoxically generated a feeling of confusion, a kind of "abandoned child” syndrome. Once the master objective was achieved, the next set of mobilizing goals became unclear. Moreover, the much expected integration did not match the old inflated expectations. The post-accession domestic political crises -which culminated with a failed presidential impeachment-, were merely symptoms of this syndrome. For at a deeper level, Romania finds itself caught between two worlds: the world of its membership in a “club” of consolidated democracies and the harsh reality of its weakly consolidated democracy. From this standpoint, the Europeanization of Romania did not stop with the formal accession. It was just another beginning, at another level.

CRPE aims to be a transformative actor in post-accession Romania by advocating accountable and transparent public administration and more public participation. CRPE also shares the view that Romania`s experience of transition from an authoritarian political system to a democratic one could be used in the formulation of EU policy choices vis-à-vis neighboring regions such as the Middle East, North Africa and those former USSR republics that are not EU member states.