Department of International Relations and European Integration

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Departamentul de Relații Internaționale și Integrare Europeană este domeniul fondator al SNSPA. Departamentul de Relații Internaționale și Integrare Europeană a fost gândit în aşa fel încât sa asigure o strânsă legătură între pregătirea teoretică și practica executată în sfera politicii externe, de securitate sau apărare, dezvoltând soluții capabile să realizeze conexiunea dintre zona academică și cea de expertiză. Departamentul de Relații Internaționale și Integrare Europeană organizează programe masterale în domeniul relațiilor internaționale, diplomației, studiilor de securitate și studiilor europene, care permit angajarea în domenii diverse, în spațiul public, dar și în cel privat. Corpul profesoral al Departamentului de Relații Internaționale și Integrare Europeană este format din cadre didactice cu o îndelungată expertiză în domeniul relațiilor externe, diplomație, instituții de securitate națională, organizații nonguvernamentale internaționale, reputați practicieni sau personalități ale vieții publice românești și europene.

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Assessing a decade of Romania-Turkey strategic partnership in an era of ambivalence and 'De-Europeanisation'
(Routledge, 2022-01) Lazăr, Aurel; Butnaru Troncotă, Miruna
The redefinition of Turkey's national identity under the rule of President Erdogan's Justice and Development Party (AKP) influenced its foreign policy. For many years, Turkey maintained an ambivalent position towards the EU, and as a NATO ally and only by the end of 2020 it disclosed an openly anti-Western position. In this context, there is a rich literature studying Turkey's actions to reassert its influence in the Western Balkans, but there is less scholarly attention on Turkey's relations with Romania - its Black Sea neighbour and NATO ally. Building on recent literature on Turkey's regional strategies and tendencies of 'De-Europeanisation', we scrutinized the country's bilateral relations with Romania between 2008 and 2020. The analysis relies on mainly qualitative data and offers a chronological account of the main diplomatic interactions between the two governments, placed in the context of significant regional events. The article concludes that, compared to the Balkans, there are the same ambivalent tendencies in Turkey-Romania relations. It shows that Turkey acted as a relevant economic partner and security ally for Romania at the Black Sea, while distancing more and more from the EU and asserting a more active role as a regional player in the Middle East and in the Balkans.
Book review : Dorin Dolghi and Octavian Țâcu (editors). 2014. The Security Dimension of European Frontier vs the Legitimacy of Political Priorities of EU and EU Member States. Eurolimes. Journal of the Institute for Euroregional Studies ”Jean Monnet” European Centre for Excellence, University of Oradea, University of Debrecen, volume 18, autumn, Oradea University Press, 235p, ISSN 2247/8450.
(National University of Political Studies and Public Administration - Department of International Relations and European Integration, 2015-06) Butnaru Troncotă, Miruna
Continuity and change in instrumentalizing "The Precedent'. How Russia uses Kosovo to legitimize the annexation of Crimea
(Routledge, 2017) Rotaru, Vasile; Butnaru Troncotă, Miruna
The article contributes to the efforts of understanding Russia's legitimization endeavours by looking at the policy narratives centered around the so-called Kosovo precedent and the way they were perceived by different actors from Ukraine, Russia, and international experts. The aim of the paper is to scrutinize the process of politicization of contested international norms (in particular, territorial sovereignty and the right to self-determination) in the case of Russia's legitimacy claims in Ukraine. In assessing the instrumentalization of the Kosovo precedent' in the Crimea crisis, we focused on three main elements identified in the selected policy narratives: the reinterpretation of history, the humanitarian and ethnic factor and the reinterpretation of Western actions in the Balkans.
Democracy Promotion by Functional Cooperation. The European Union and its Neighbourhood. Challenges to Democracy in the 21st Century
(Routledge, 2016) Butnaru Troncotă, Miruna
EU Crises as «Catalysts of Europeanization»? Insights from Eurobarometer Data in Romania on the Impact of the Refugee Crisis and Brexit
(National University of Political Studies and Public Administration - Department of International Relations and European Integration, 2018-06) Butnaru Troncotă, Miruna; Loy, Alexandra
For the last decade, the EU was confronted with an unprecedented series of subsequent and often overlapping crises - the constitutional crisis, the Euro crisis, the massive influx of migrants and refugees and last but not least, the Brexit referendum. They were all very different in structure, but they had a common element - they put to test the European Union's (EU) legitimacy. The main assumption of the study is that these recent crises in the EU directly influence the debates in the national public spheres, and affect the way in which solidarity among EU citizens and EU states is imagined and enacted in media. Thus, the study aims to explain variation in the Romanian public opinion for the period 2014 to 2017. It identifies exogenous factors that relate to the EU polity, its policies and national politics and how they shaped public debate in Romania around two main Pan-European crises - the refugee crisis and Brexit. The paper discusses the impact of the two crises on the Romanians' level of trust in EU institutions and assesses possible causes of this 'superficial Euro-enthusiasm' on the overall context of the Europeanization of public sphere in Romania. The findings are discussed in light of three main conditions of a Europeanized national public sphere: the role of Romanian media in building EU legitimacy; very high levels of polarization and contestation around the 2 topics of common concern; and a clear 'European dimension that transcends national topics.
EU’s “laboratory” in the Western Balkans : experimenting europeanization without democratization : the case of Bosnia and Herzegovina
(Asociación Española de Ciencia Política y de la Administración (AECPA), 2013-03) Bărbulescu, Iordan Gheorghe; Butnaru Troncotă, Miruna
The article will explore some potential causes of this limited process of Europeanization and its overall impact on the malfunctioning of Bosnia. After a short conceptual overview inside the Europeanization literature and its connection with democratization, the analytical section of the article will focus on the particular case of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH). The main question to be tackled is: How democratic is the Europeanization process in Bosnia and who should be held accountable for the outcome after almost two decades-long effort? The subsequent analysis will try to bring a potential answer to this concern, using the intricate case of the Europeanization of BiH as an illustration for the ambivalent role of the EU in the Western Balkans (WB) with the scope of pointing out some lessons which were not fully drawn from this process. The main conclusion is that the mixed strategy of EU that induced both external pressure and local ownership under the EU conditionality created institutional blockage and a democratic deficit.
EU's 'Eastern discontents' - when 'top-down' and 'bottom-up' politicisation collide - the case of Romania in the future of Europe debate
(Routledge, 2022-05-17) Butnaru Troncotă, Miruna; Ioniță, Dragoș
Over the past decade, the wave of successive crises that hit the EU has tested the EU's legitimacy and resulted in increased EU politicisation. In the period between the Brexit referendum up until the 2019 European elections, several CEE member states (such as Poland and Hungary and to a lesser extent Romania) contested the EU for breaching their national sovereignty, claiming that their countries' values and identities are 'threatened' by the EU's interference. In this article, we analyse the case of Romania's clashes with the European Commission between 2017 and 2019 on the topic of rule of law backsliding. We analyse these discursive clashes in connection to the country's first Presidency of the Council, as an illustration of the increased politicisation placed in the overall context of the Future of Europe debates. The empirical part is based on a chronological account of selected qualitative data about how this national-supranational 'power struggle' unfolded in the studied period. The findings show that in the case of Romania two forms of politicisation coincided and collided - one that was 'bottom-up', marked by highly polarised national politics and an East-West division and another that was 'top-down' - defined by the tensions inside EU's own political dynamics between the Council and the Commission.
European Green Deal and the new policy goals in transport and mobility - how gamification can influence pro-environmental behaviour for cutting carbon emissions in the EU
(National University of Political Studies and Public Administration - Department of International Relations and European Integration, 2020) Butnaru Troncotă, Miruna
Road traffic is one of the major sources of many of the worst pollutants, including carbon dioxide (CO2), carbon monoxide, carcinogenic particles and noise. The past decades have seen a dramatic rise in these harmful effects on human health, that proved to cause at the same time massive damage to the natural and built environment. In response to this aggravating situation, the new European Commission's President Ursula von der Leyen placed as the centrepiece of her political mandate 'the European Green Deal', a comprehensive climate and nature package of measures to make Europe climate neutral by 2050. To reach this very ambitious goal, there is a need for very creative and efficient policy solutions. And this is the scope of the current study. As the sustainability concerns become vital for policy planning, the paper advocates for the need of all EU's main stakeholders to realise the potential of 'green gamification' to help EU member states reach these ambitious policy goals, particularly in the field of transport and mobility - which are of crucial importance for overall CO2 reduction. Placed at the intersection of technology innovation and the need to find more efficient ways to protect the environment, 'green gamification' is an emerging concept that refers to the usage of game mechanics when it comes to engaging people, with the purpose to change their behaviour on sustainability issues. In short, it aims to motivate a sustainable behaviour within companies, institutions and citizens, with the use of interactive games, in order to fight against pollution and climate change. Applied to the field of transport and mobility, green gamification implies using strategies to cut carbon emissions especially by convincing people to reduce the use of private cars. But how can we better incentivise citizens' behaviour for cutting carbon emissions and achieve the new EU transport and mobility policy goals for 2050? To tackle this relevant question the article aims to assess the potential of 'green gamification' to help EU member states reach these ambitious policy goals.
Europeanisation through education : promoting european etudies in “Eastern Partnership” countries
(UACES (University Association for Contemporary European Studies), 2022-12-15) Makarychev, Andrey; Butnaru Troncotă, Miruna
Educational practices are instrumental in the transfer of European values beyond EU borders. Our aim is to problematize Europeanisation through education in the Eastern Partnership (EaP) countries by studying the promotion of EU studies in higher education pro-jects funded by the Erasmus + program. The paper discusses the educational dimension of Europeanisation in EaP countries from three interrelated perspectives -social constructivism, the Foucauldian concept of governmentality and a post-structuralist reading of centrality and marginality. We specifically focus on a series of international projects developed by the University of Tartu (Estonia) in partnership with other EU-based and non-EU universities from the EaP. We used qualitative data from reports of 4 EU-funded cooperation projects and also students' views obtained in 2 focus groups that explored how the EU is taught and discussed. In the end, the added value of the article is that it offers a critical view on teaching the EU in the Eastern neighborhood, focusing on nuanced local perspectives on the challenges of Europeanisation through education.
In-between a dream and a nightmare? Assessing the impact of 'Wartime Politicisation' on EU enlargement policy after 2022
(Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iasi, 2024) Butnaru Troncotă, Miruna
The brutal start of Russia's invasion in Ukraine in February 2022 had numerous unexpected consequences. One of them was that it brought enlargement back at the top of EU's agenda. This was also followed by a revitalisation of EU's own internal dilemma between prioritising deepening or widening, together with the increasing contradictions between member states on how should enlargement proceed. It is thus relevant to assess whether this geopolitical shift had an overall positive or negative impact on the EU. In this context, the main aim of the article is to assess the various forms of 'wartime politicisation' between 2022 and 2024 among the main policy actors in EU's public sphere around the topic of advancing its enlargement policy. In end, the article demonstrates that 'wartime politicisation' can have both stabilizing and destabilizing effects on EU and discusses future avenues of research.
Reconfiguring EU peripheries : political elites, contestation, and geopolitical shifts
(Helsinki University Press, 2024) Butnaru Troncotă, Miruna ; Özçelik, Ali Onur ; Cucută, Radu Alexandru
Reconfiguring EU Peripheries explores the diverse nature of the European Union’s interactions with its peripheries. Focusing on a period of rising regional tensions marked most recently by the war in Ukraine, the volume casts new empirical and conceptual light on the diverse motivations that underpin the political elites’ attitudes towards the EU in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, Hungary, Kosovo, Moldova, Romania, Türkiye and Ukraine. The volume engages with various understandings of the EU’s interactions with its different peripheries and shows how these dynamics are closely related to the self-perceived nature of the societies in question in relation to the EU. The impact of recent crises and conflicts underscore in some cases the need for strengthening solidarity and for ‘more EU’, whereas others highlight the doubts and disappointment over the challenges these societies have faced over recent years. The empirically rich case studies enable both interpretations of and debates on the EU integration processes. A comparative exploration of countries at different stages in the EU accession process and the various political elites’ attitudes towards the EU outlines the essentially constructed nature of peripherality. By challenging the conventional understanding of contestation and peripherality, this volume is a worthwhile first step towards looking at the EU and the peripheries it creates from an alternative, and sometimes ignored, point of view.
The ambivalent role of the EU in the Western Balkans - "limited europeanisation" between formal promises and practical constraints : the case of Bosnia-Herzegovina
(Institutul European din România (IER),, 2012-03) Bărbulescu, Iordan Gheorghe; Butnaru Troncotă, Miruna
It became a shared opinion among European policy-makers to state that without a serious commitment from the European Union (EU), the Western Balkans (WB) will find itself increasingly isolated from the unfolding developments around it and this may endanger the stability of the entire continent. The scope of this paper is two folded: first, to examine the role of the EU in the WB with a focus on democratic institution-building; second, taking Bosnia-Herzegovina (BiH) as a case study, the article aims to determine whether there is a need for a new theoretical framework in order to more accurately define the specific process of the Europeanisation in the WB. In this regard it proposes the term "limited Europeanisation". The main theoretical aim of the article is to identify some clear-cut criteria of this phenomenon in the last 14-year evolution of BiH in relation with the EU.
‘The association that dissociates’ – narratives of local political resistance in Kosovo and the delayed implementation of the Brussels Agreement
(Routledge, 2018-05-28) Butnaru Troncotă, Miruna
The existing literature on the EU's transformative role in the Balkans looks at EU conditionality as a unidirectional system of rewards that is expected to motivate local elites to comply with EU rules. This article raises a different question: how do local actors bypass the implementation phase of EU conditionality and what kind of political resistance narratives do they use for this purpose? The analysis attempts to tackle these inter-related questions by focusing on the delayed implementation ofthe Brussels Agreement between Belgrade and Pristina as a case study, using the interpretive method of narrative analysis. The article aims to link fieldwork empirics with theoretical discussions in the field of EU compliance literature by stressing the importance of local actors' resistance to EU incentives. Three levels of analysis will be conducted in order to address the research question: (1) mapping different types of actors at the local level and stressing their heterogeneity; (2) understanding how local resistance to EU pressure evolved in the period 2013-2016; and (3) showing how their policy narratives influenced the implementation phase and the maintenance of the status quo. In conclusion, the analysis shows that the EU's mediation strategy of 'constructive ambiguity' favours local actors' political resistance, particularly in the implementation phase. The main findings show that 'dividers' outnumber 'connectors' in local actors' narratives, thus strengthening political resistance to EU pressure.
The challenges of 'Sitting on Two Chairs' : testing Serbia's neutrality policy in the Ukrainian crisis
(National University of Political Studies and Public Administration - Department of International Relations and European Integration, 2019) Butnaru Troncotă, Miruna
Since 2007, Serbia is considered to promote a model of foreign policy based on maintaining an equal distance between Brussels and Moscow. This strategy became more evident after the annexation of Crimea in March 2014, when on the one hand Serbia supported the territorial integrity of Ukraine, and on the other hand it abstained from voting the UN resolution which was meant to reaffirm the territorial integrity of Ukraine and did not impose sanctions on Russia. These contradictory decisions were followed by numerous other political events that required Serbia's clear-cut positioning in the Ukrainian conflict in 2015 and 2016. The paper assesses the impact of the conflict in Ukraine to be found in the main discourses around Serbia's foreign policy of 'sitting on two chairs' between its European perspective and maintaining its close ties with Russia, as viewed by elites in the period between 2014 and 2016. First, the paper explores the various meanings attached to Serbia's military neutrality in scholarly and policy debates. Next, it looks at how those meanings have been enacted in discourses and practices along the first three years of the Ukrainian crisis. The conclusions discuss the paradoxes of Serbia's positions, pointing towards the 'politics' of the neutrality policy as revealed in the discourses that surrounded the Ukrainian crisis and various East-West divides that it triggered.
The European Union and the 'New War' from its Eastern borders
(Editura Universităţii „Alexandru Ioan Cuza”, 2016) Butnaru Troncotă, Miruna
There is enough evidence to claim that since 2014 a new type of war is waged in Ukraine, which is novel in terms of methods, strategies, tactics, and level of human sacrifice. It is an ongoing discussion between experts, scholars and policy makers whether the Ukrainian crisis showed the limits of the European Union's (EU) approach to conflict resolution, or, on the contrary, it served as a chance to redesign its approach towards its neighbourhoods and refine its instruments in order to more efficiently contain conflicts under the leadership of Federica Mogherini. The aim of the article is to identify the characteristics of the 'New War' paradigm in the context of recent political developments after the annexation of Crimea and the ongoing open conflict in Eastern Ukraine. The purpose of this paper is to reveal both the conceptual clarity of this theoretical paradigm, against its critics, but also to emphasise its policy importance for strengthening EU conflict resolution strategies. The article also points to the fact that after the wide process of reviewing the European Security Strategy conducted between 2015 and 2016, the EEAS finally launched a new approach in dealing with EU troubled neighbourhoods, which contains numerous elements borrowed from the 'new war' paradigm and the concept of human security.
The Formation of the Juncker Commission and Its Impact on the Western Balkans
(National University of Political Studies and Public Administration - Department of International Relations and European Integration, 2014) Butnaru Troncotă, Miruna
2014 can be considered a new turning point in international relations and EU studies, as it was overall a very politically engaging year, both for historical memory and for present times. First, there was the centenary of the beginning of the First World War. Second, it brought a brand new institutional reshuffling in Brussels. Following the May parliamentary elections, the EU appointed its new leadership for the next 5 years. And third, there was the spread of violence, insecurity and political turmoil in Ukraine, Gaza and Iraq/ Syria. In this intricate context, all eyes are again on the EU and its capacity to face these geopolitical challenges. One of the biggest changes brought by the newly announced Juncker Commission is the way it has restructured the foreign policy component. Before the official announcement, when some of the Commission plans leaked the press, many were speaking about the possibility for the enlargement portfolio to be completely dropped off. In reality it was not, but the message is still not very encouraging for the Western Balkans. The aim of the article is to assess the main pros and cons referring to a possible disengagement of EU in the already delayed Europeanization of the Western Balkans. The main points to be taken in consideration are: the reasons for EU to take such a decision based on the limited progress of the countries, the foreseen impact of this decision in the next 5 years and the risks for a re-emergence of violence and instability in the troubled region.

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