ROMANIA

• Official name: Romania
• Location: Eastern Europe
• International organisations: Council of Europe, European Union, North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe, United Nations, World Trade Organisation
• Borders: Bulgaria, Hungary, Moldova, Serbia, Ukraine
• Coastline: Black Sea
• Land area: 237,500 Km2
• Population: 21,500,000
• Annual GDP (PPP) per capita: US$11,500 (2009 CIA estimate). World ranking: 75
• Ethnicity: Romanian 89.5%, Hungarian 7.1%, Roma 1.8%, German 0.5%
• Languages: Romanian is the official language and is spoken by 90% of the population. Hungarian is spoken by 7% of the population.
• Religion: About 70% of Romanians are at least nominally Romanian Orthodox Christians. The Hungarian minority are mostly Catholics. There are small Protestant and Jewish minorities.
• Form of government: Presidential democratic republic. Romania is divided into 41 counties and the Bucharest Municipality.
• Capital: Bucuresti (Bucharest)
• Constitution: The Constitution of Romania came into effect on 8 December 1991.
• Head of state: The President, elected by direct universal suffrage for a four-year term.
• Head of government: The Prime Minister, appointed by the President. The Prime Minister is usually the leader of the largest party in the lower house of the legislature.
• Legislature: The Romanian Parliament (Parlamentul Romaniei) is a bicameral legislature. The Chamber of Deputies (Camera Deputatilor) has 332 members elected for four-year terms, of whom 314 are elected by proportional representation and 18 members are elected to represent ethnic minorities. The Senate (Senatul) has 137 members, elected for four-year terms by proportional representation. (The number of members of both houses changes according to changes in population.)
• Electoral authority: The Romanian Central Election Bureau administers national elections.
• Freedom House rating 2009: Political Rights 2, Civil Liberties 2

Political history

The three historic Vlach or Romanian principalities of Wallacia, Moldavia and Transylvania were brought under Ottoman rule in the 15th century, although they retained some degree of autonomy. An independence movement developed in the 19th century and in 1866 Romania became an independent principality under an imported Hohenzollern prince. In 1881 the country became fully independent as the Kingdom of Romania, although Transylvania remained under Hungarian rule until 1918.

After the First World War Romania established a parliamentary system, and the liberal leader Ion Bratianu attempted to carry out land reform and other steps towards a stable democracy. But his efforts were thwarted by ethnic and political conflict, and in 1938 a royal dictatorship was established by King Carol II. From 1940 a fascist regime under Marshall Ion Antonescu held power, and Romania entered the Second World War as a German ally. This led in 1944 to Soviet occupation, the overthrow of the monarchy and the establishment of a Communist regime in 1947.

Under the Communist ruler Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej from 1947 to 1965, Romania was an orthodox member of the Soviet bloc. His successor Nicolae Ceausescu, however, established a bizarre personal dictatorship which isolated the country and ruined its economy, although Ceausescu was for a time favoured by the west because of his independence from Soviet domination. In December 1989 Ceausescu was overthrown and executed when a popular revolt triggered an army coup. Romania had a difficult transition to democratic government and a free market economy, with frequent strikes, riots and changes of government. The situation has become more stable since 2000, and Romania has joined both NATO and the EU.

Romania has now developed a fairly stable party system. The two main parties of the right are the Democratic Liberal Party (PLD) and the more liberal National Liberal Party (PNL). The main party of the centre-left is the Social Democratic Party (PSD), which is in a rather strange alliance with the Conservative Party (PCR). The Hungarian Democratic Alliance of Romania (UDMR) represents the Hungarian minority in Transylvania.

In 2004 Traian Basescu of the PNL was elected President at the head of a centre-right coalition, defeating the PSD candidate Adrian Nastase. The 2008 legislative elections saw the PSD-PC alliance and the PLD emerge as the two leading parties, with almost the same number of seats - the PNL came a distant third. The PLD's Emil Boc then became Prime Minister. At the 2009 presidential elections Basescu narrowly defeated the PSD's Mircea Geoana.

Freedom House's 2009 report on Romania says: "Romania is an electoral democracy. Elections since 1991 have been considered generally free and fair... Romania stepped up its anticorruption efforts ahead of EU accession in January 2007. High-level corruption probes have improved, but EU progress reports in 2007 and July 2008 noted a pattern of weak or suspended sentences... Romania was ranked 70 out of 180 countries surveyed in Transparency International's 2008 Corruption Perceptions Index, with only Bulgaria scoring worse within the EU."

Updated July 2010