EUROPEANIZATION IN EASTERN EUROPE. CASE STUDY: ROMANIA

In 2004, only eight of the tenth Eastern European countries were invited to join the European Union. The other two countries, which their accession process was delayed, were Romania and Bulgaria. According to the European Commission the conditionality principle and the Copenhagen criteria were not fulfilled. The article is based on the case study of Romania and it aims at analyzing and discussing the issue of Europeanization in a post-communist country. The research method used is the case study approach, due to the possibility of using both qualitative and quantitative data combined with the content analysis method. This integrating evidence would give the reader the opportunity to evaluate and interpret in his own perception the Romanian case. The writer has the task to offer some guidelines to follow easier and to answer the why and the how questions. Despite its European integration, Romania still has problems with its process of Europeanization, even after six years of European Union membership. The issue of Europeanization will be discussed further on in this article, as it was influenced by different factors, like slow transition and a superficial democratization. We would be analyzing the impact of Europeanization in the post-communist Romania, thus the objective of this article is to open a new discussion about the type of Europeanization present in Romania, the opportunity to observe that the process is still ongoing and it can leave place for different interpretations.