ABSTRACT
As the discourse moves on the transition which the is main theme of the book, a whole chapter is devoted to the political context for the economic changes accompanying the radical shift in foreign relations away from the old Soviet bloc to the resumption of a close association with Western Europe. As already noted, western links underpinned Romania’s modernisation from the end of Ottoman suzerainty until the onset of the communist era that ushered in a relatively brief but formative phase of separation at the behest of Moscow. Romania’s contested national space and its location in the strategically sensitive Carpathian-Danube-Black Sea zone – close to the Middle East and the Caspian hydrocarbon province – has made for a keen interest in geopolitics – evident both before and since a communist period when such discussion was obviously taboo (all the more so in view of the abusive way in which Bessarabia was annexed by the Soviet Union in 1940 and again in 1944). Nevertheless Romania was rather slow to join international organisations (apart from the EBRD in 1991). She joined the Central European Initiative in 1996 (after it been started by Austria, Hungary, Italy and the then Yugoslavia in 1989) and CEFTA in 1997, six years after its initial launch. More importantly, after a few years of indecision under governments frequently identified with neo-communism, Romania abandoned any notion of a ‘third way’ and gave top priority to the twin goals of EU and NATO membership. They were already contemplated when the centre-right government took power in 1998 but they quickly became explicit and have dominated the political scene ever since.
