Romania in NATO and the EU: Political declarations and public opinion
The article considers the peculiarities of foreign policy orientation of Romania as the EU and NATO member state in the context of comparative analyses of Romanian official declarations and strategic initiatives with the public opinion. The key scientific method is also content-analysis. The author underlines the idea that despite some specific features of each president and government in internal and foreign policy Romanian leaders consistently support the idea of active policy in the Euro-Atlantic institutions. The paper pays special attention towards the period after the year 2014, when the full-scale crisis in Western-Russian relations has started. In this situation president K. Johannis has continued and deepened the course in NATO and the EU that was launched by his predecessors. The analysis of Johannis` declarations shows that in the conflict between the USA and the EU Romania perceived itself first of all as the EU member state. It shows that Romania tries to be one of the centers of power in the region. In this regard the article shows the attitude of Romanian establishment towards the project «Three seas». The article also demonstrates that not all the representatives of Romanian civil society support the current official Romanian course in foreign policy. This line is doubted and criticized by independent political and economic experts and also by the figures in the spheres of science and culture. The assumption about the possible realization by Romania of specific line inside NATO and the EU as a reaction to the problems caused by the current political course is made.