Recent History
The 2000 elections, brought Iliescu's PSD (Social Democratic Party) back to power (the party, led largely by former Communist officials, had changed its name again from PDSR to PSD) and Iliescu himself won a third term as the country's president. Adrian Nastase became the prime minister of the newly formed government. His rule was shaken by recurring allegations of corruption.
Presidential and parliamentary elections took place again on November 28, 2004. No political party was able to secure a viable parliamentary majority, amidst accusations from international observers and opposition parties alike that the PSD had committed large-scale electoral fraud. There was no winner in the first round of the presidential elections. The joint PNL-PD candidate, Traian Basescu, won the second round on December 12, 2004 with 51% of the vote and thus became the third post-revolutionary president of Romania. The PNL leader, Calin Popescu Tariceanu was assigned the difficult task of building a coalition government without including the PSD. In December 2004, the new coalition government (PD, PNL, PUR Romanian Humanist Party - which eventually changed its name to Romanian Conservative Party and UDMR), was sworn in under Prime Minister Tariceanu.
Romania joined NATO in 2004, and the country is scheduled to join the European Union (EU), alongside Bulgaria, in 2007. The EU accession treaty signed on April 25, 2005 in Luxembourg contains a safeguard clause, which allows delaying entry for a year if EU standards are not met. The government faces two main challenges to achieve the necessary conditions for entry into the EU: eradication of corruption, which remains widespread, and reform of the judicial system.
Longer Historical Perspective
In 513 BC, south of the Danube, the tribal confederation of the Getae were defeated by the Persian Emperor
Darius the Great during his campaign against the Scythians (Herodotus IV.93). Over half a millennium later, the Getae (also named Daci by Romans) were defeated by the Roman Empire under Emperor Trajan in two campaigns stretching from 101 to 106, and the core of their kingdom was turned into the Roman province of Dacia. The Gothic and Carpic campaigns in the Balkans during 238256 forced the Roman Empire to reorganize a new Roman province of Dacia south of Danube, inside former Moesia Superior.
At the end of the 18th century, the Habsburg Monarchy incorporated Transylvania into what successively became the Austrian Empire. During the time of the dual monarchy of Austria-Hungary (1867-1918), Romanians in Transylvania experienced one of the worst oppression in the form of the Magyarization policies of the Hungarian government.
The modern state of Romania was formed by the merging of the principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia in 1859 under the Moldavian domnitor Alexandru Ioan Cuza. He was replaced by Prince Karl of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen in 1866. During the Russo-Turkish War, Romania fought on the Russian side; in the Treaty of Berlin in 1878 Romania was recognized as an independent state by the Great Powers. In return for ceding to Russia the three southern districts of Bessarabia which had been regained by Moldavia after the Crimean War in 1852, the Kingdom of Romania acquired Dobruja. In 1881 the principality was raised to a kingdom and Prince Carol I became King Carol I. spite of its previous alliance with Imperial Germany and Austria-Hungary, Romania entered World War I on the side of the Triple Entente in a move aimed at acquiring Transylvania. The war was a disaster for Romania as the Central Powers conquered most of the country and captured or killed the majority of its army within four months. By war's end Austria-Hungary and the Russian Empire had collapsed, allowing Bessarabia and Bukovina to unite with the Kingdom of Romania in 1918. Transylvania was annexed to Romania by force in the Treaty of Trianon in 1920.
Presidential and parliamentary elections were held on May 20, 1990. Running against representatives of the pre-war National Peasants' Party and National Liberal Party, and taking advantage of FSN's tight control of the national radio and television, Iliescu won 85% of the vote. The FSN secured two-thirds of the seats in Parliament. A university professor with strong family roots in the Communist Party, Petre Roman, was named Prime Minister of the new government, which consisted mainly of former communist officials. The government initiated modest free market reforms.
