L'ombre de l'empire: les rapports de la Roumanie à la Russie, 1991-2006

Abstract

The aim of this article is to analyze the bilateral relations between Romania and the Russian Federation from the dismantlement of the USSR until the accession of Romania to the European Union. The main thesis that we shall try to demonstrate is that, for several reasons, these relations remained very ambiguous during this whole period. One the one hand, there are historical causes of a strong russophobia among the Romanian population, which prevented a rapprochement between the two countries after the fall of communism. On the other hand, Russia's prestige as a great power and its proximity to Romania makes it impossible to ignore when it comes to foreign policy. The position of the different Romanian governments oscillated between these two negative attitudes. We shall try to explain the policy conducted by the Romanian decision-makers by using three types of variables: history, domestic politics and international environment.