Romania in the World

The “Romania in the World” Initiative seeks to map Romania’s relations with the key regions and great powers in the world today. In a world defined by great upheavals, geopolitical competition, a multiplicity of converging crises, Romania’s foreign and security policy deserves to be revisited. The key premise behind the Initiative is that current Romanian foreign and security policy is not up to the task and one of the key issues are related to preference formulation. The process through which Romania defines its regional, bilateral, and specific preferences vis-a-vis current events and actors is broken. The country often does not have a well specified position and set of preferences on key issues and in relation with key actors.

Beyond the strategic trinity of objectives (US, NATO, EU) and two general aims (security and status), the country has often been unable to take clear and well-informed positions regarding even neighbouring regions and issues. Way too often, Romania is reactive and simply adopts the latest position issued in Brussels and Washington, instead of investing in a process of reflection and preference-definition. We seek to correct this issue by supporting and publishing cutting edge reflective and policy-actionable analyses on Romania’s position in the world and what should the country seek to achieve in relation to key regions and great powers.

Three questions

The policy output of the “Romania in the World” initiative is guided by three overarching questions:

1. What are the current relations of Romania with key regions and actors in world politics? What are current struggles, issues, and positive aspects of these relations?
2. What should Romania seek to achieve in relation with key regions and great powers? In a gist: what should be Romania’s preferences/interests vis-a-vis these actors/regions?
3. How should Romania achieve those preferences/interests? What tools and frameworks should be developed, updated, or changed to achieve the identified preferences/interests?