The West and the Challenge to Ethnic Politics in Romania

1 As quoted in the Bucharest daily Adevarul, 17 April 1999.

2 See Robert D. Kaplan, `The Fulcrum of Europe', Atlantic Monthly, September 1998.

3 Mediafax news agency, Bucharest, 14 March 1997.

4 Reuters report, `Romanian-Hungarian Leaders Hail Political Pact', carried by Central Europe On-Line (Prague, 3 June 1997; www.centraleurope.com/).

5 Defence Minister Victor Babiuc in an interview with the Bucharest weekly 22 (20-26 April 1999) referred to Robert D. Kaplan's article in the International Herald Tribune (8 April 1999), which mentioned that `in Romania only the military is well run'.

6 See Georgios Kostakos & Dimitris Bourantonis, `Innovations in Peace-Keeping: The Case of Albania', Security Dialogue, vol. 29, no. 1, March 1998, pp. 49-58.

7 For a critique of Romania's approach to NATO after 1996, see Valentin Stan, Romania Si Esecul Campaniei Pentru Vest [Romania and the Failure of the Campaign for the West], (Bucharest: Editura Universitatii Din Bucuresti, 1999).

8 The official NATO statement issued at the end of the Madrid summit, negotiated between US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and her French counterpart Hubert Védrine and couched in diplomatic language, noted that Romania was at the forefront of countries due to join NATO in a second wave of expansion. See Bogdan Chireac, `Contractul cu America' [The Contract with America], Adevarul, 19 March 1998.

9 Vasile, like his predecessor, belongs to the Christian Democrats, the only prewar party to re-occupy a significant position of power in the region after 1989.

10 For insightful analysis see Pál Dunay, `Hungarian-Romanian Relations: A Changed Paradigm?', in Monika Wohlfeld, ed., `The Effects of Enlargement on Bilateral Relations in Central and Eastern Europe', Chaillot Paper 26 (Paris: Institute for Security Studies WEU, June 1997), pp. 6-25.

11 See Tom Gallagher, `Nationalism and Democracy', in Geoffrey Pridham & Tom Gallagher, eds, Experimenting With Democracy: Regime Change in the Balkans (London: Routledge, in press).

12 See the Bucharest daily Nine O'Clock, 9 June 1999.

13 An opinion poll, asking voters which of 15 leading professions they had most respect for, placed politicians at the bottom, with only a 10% approval rating. See Bucharest weekly 22, 30 June-6 July 1998.

14 Not long after Sabin Gherman, a Cluj-based Romanian journalist, had set up a proautonomy foundation, Adevarul warned in an editorial of 13 October 1998 that `continued degradation of the economy and society threatens the national unitary Romanian state with a “velvet” separatism involving Romanians as much as Hungarians'.

15 For the background and aftermath of the bilateral treaty, see Tom Gallagher, `Danube Detente: Romania's Reconciliation with Hungary After 1996', Balkanologie, vol. 1, no. 2, December 1997, pp. 85-107.

16 The eclipse of the peasantry and the catastrophic harm done to Romanian culture are movingly described by H.-R. Patapievici, in `Anatomia unei catostrofe', in Iordan Chimet, ed., Momentul Adveraului (Cluj: Dacia 1996), pp.168-183.

17 However, there are limits to this tolerance. One example is the reluctance of the main liberal publishing company, Humanitas, to stock in its nationwide chain of bookshops the journal Altera which, since its launch in 1995, has promoted the concept of Europe of the Regions. Altera (altera@proeuropa.netsoft.ro) is published bi-annually by the Liga Pro-Europa, which was formed in Tirgu Mures after this Transylvanian city witnessed violent Romanian-Hungarian clashes in 1990. In no small measure, its reconciliation work has helped to lighten the atmosphere in a city in which the two ethnies have an almost identical share of the population.

18 Unfinished Peace: Report of The International Commission on the Balkans (Aspen Institute/Carnegie, 1996) shows how the US-led Bosnian peace initiative increased the importance of states adjacent to ex-Yugoslavia in the eyes of Washington policymakers.

19 See Monitorul, a liberal newspaper based in Iasi, 30 June 1998.

20 In June 1998 the IMF expressed alarm at heightened military expenditure and its impact on `macro-economic stability'. John Hill, the IMF's Bucharest representative, stated that `the urgent spending priorities for Romania... need to be structural reform, health and education, rather than the military sector'. Adevarul, 5 June 1998.

21 As quoted in Nine O'Clock, 9 November 1998.

22 Nine O'Clock, 30 April-2 May 1999.

23 Monitorul, 29 April 1999.

24 South-East Europe Newsline, Radio Free Europe, 1 April 1999.

25 See White Book on Romania and NATO, 1997 (Bucharest: Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 1997), chapter 7, p. 6.

26 South-East Europe Newsline, Radio Free Europe, 27 April 1999.

27 Monitorul, 3 July 1999.

28 Nine O'Clock, 14 June 1999 and 9-11 July 1999.

29 See 22, 15-21 June 1999.