DISCOURSING ON ‘EUROPEAN’ IDENTITY. A STUDY OF ROMANIA’S NATIONAL IDENTITY AND FOREIGN POLICY IN 1990-1996

The central purpose of this study is to analyse the role of national identity in shaping the story of Romania’s foreign policy between 1990 and 1996. The investigation explains why and how Romania’s aspired Euro-Atlantic national identity was subject to re-definitions and intense discursive negotiation, as well as how and why these identity re-definitions impacted on the state’s foreign policy decisions. Romania’s post-communist foreign policy had two major goals that marked the evolution of national identity – integration into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the European Union (EU). However, the ‘Western’ orientation reflected in NATO and EU membership was not necessarily a natural choice for Romania and emerged after domestic contestation among political leaders. The narratives of Romanian national identity and foreign policy are nuanced and far from straightforward, particularly in the period 1990-1996.