On-line Journal Modelling the New Europe Issue no. 15/2015 Scientific Committee: Prof. Dr. Gérard BOSSUAT, European Union Liaison Committee of Historians/ Professor Emeritus, Université de Cergy- Pontoise, France Prof. Dr.dr.h.c. Wichard WOYKE, Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Munster, Germany Prof. Dr. Wilfried LOTH, President of the European Union Liaison Committee of Historians/Duisburg-Essen University, Germany Prof. Dr. phil. habil Michael GEHLER, Universität Hildesheim, Germany Prof. Dr. Dr.h.c. Reinhard MEYERS, Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität, Munster, Germany Prof. Dr. Dietmar WILSKE, Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität, Munster, Germany Prof. Dr. Sylvain SCHIRMANN, Director of the Institut d’études Politiques de Strasbourg, France Prof. Dr. Ioan HORGA, Institute for Euroregional Studies, University of Oradea Prof. Dr. George POEDE, Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iaşi, Iași Prof. Dr. Nicu GAVRILUTA, Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iaşi, Iași Prof. Dr. Vasile PUȘCAȘ, Babeş-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca Prof. Dr. Ovidiu PECICAN, Faculty of European Studies, Babeș-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca Prof. Dr. Marius JUCAN, Faculty of European Studies, Babeș-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca Prof. Dr. Gheorghe CLIVETI, “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University, Iaşi Assoc. Prof. Dr. Adrian BASARABA, West University, Timişoara Assoc. Prof. Dr. Mircea MANIU, Faculty of European Studies, Babeș-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca Assoc. Prof. Dr. Simion COSTEA, Petru Maior University, Tg. Mureș Assoc. Prof. Dr. Liviu ȚÎRĂU, Faculty of European Studies, Babeș-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca Assoc. Prof. Dr. Georgiana CICEO, Babeş-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca Assoc. Prof. Dr. Nicoleta RACOLTA-PAINA, Babeş-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca Assoc. Prof. Dr. Florin DUMA, Faculty of European Studies, Babeș-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca Assist. Prof. Dr. Mariano BARBATO (Professor DAAD), Babeș-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca Dr. Titus POENARU, Industry, Research and Energy (Policy Advisor), EP Brussels Dr. Gilda TRUICĂ, European Institute of Romania, Head of Communication Unit Editorial Staff Prof. Dr. Nicolae PĂUN: [email protected] Assoc. Prof. Dr. Georgiana CICEO: [email protected] Lect. Dr. Miruna Andreea BALOSIN: [email protected] Lect. Dr. Adrian CORPĂDEAN: [email protected] Lect. Dr. Horațiu DAN: [email protected] The On-line journal Modelling the New Europe is opened to PhD students, young researchers, academic staff interested to promote researches and present different perspectives on the EU. The papers should provide an analysis of economic, social, cultural and political perspectives and developments on subjects concerning the European Union 1 On-line Journal Modelling the New Europe Issue no. 15/2015 CONTENTS I. Valentin NAUMESCU: THE POST-VILNIUS EUROPEAN UNION’S EASTERN NEIGHBOURHOOD: TENSIONS, CRISES, PERSPECTIVES II. Florin Sebastian DUMA: THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE ROMANIAN STOCK MARKET FROM FRONTIER TO THE EMERGING MARKET STATUS III. Dragoș PĂUN: THE IMPORTANCE OF THE GERMAN AND AUSTRIAN CAPITAL IN ROMANIA (1990-2013) IV. Mircea Teodor MANIU: EURO ADOPTION THROUGHOUT CEE. OPTIONS AND ACTIONS V. Monica Ioana BURCĂ-VOICU: TRADE OPPORTUNITIES FOR ROMANIA. PROSPECTS AND RECORDED PERFORMANCES OF THE ORGANIC FOOD PRODUCTS AT THE LEVEL OF THE ROMANIAN EXPORTS VI. Horațiu DAN: CULTURAL DIFFERENCES AS OBSTACLES IN THE EUROPEAN ECONOMIC INTEGRATION PROCESS - A LABOUR MARKET PERSPECTIVE VII. Miruna Andreea BALOSIN: ROMANIAN LOBBYING IN THE EU VIII. Vladimír GONĚC: FROM THE PRO-EUROPEANISM TO THE EURO- REALISM? CZECH AND SLOVAK EXPERIENCE 1989-2004-2014 IX. Dorin-Mircea DOBRA: OVERVIEW OF THE EUROPEAN FUTURE X. Antoanela Paula MUREȘAN: STATE AND NATION. A COMPARATIVE APPROACH BETWEEN THE LEGIONARY AND THE COMMUNIST DISCOURSE XI. Ramona Alexandra ROŞU: AN ANALYSIS OF THE EFFICIENCY OF INTERDEPENDENCIES MANAGEMENT IN THE CONTEXT OF INTERGUVERNAMENTALISM AND COMMUNITARIANISM XII. Lavinia-Ioana OPRIȘ: EUROSCEPTICISM AS A RESPONSE TO EU POLICIES: PERSPECTIVES AFTER 2014 2 On-line Journal Modelling the New Europe Issue no. 15/2015 THE POST-VILNIUS EUROPEAN UNION’S EASTERN NEIGHBOURHOOD: TENSIONS, CRISES, PERSPECTIVES Valentin Naumescu Associate Professor, PhD Faculty of European Studies Babeş-Bolyai University Cluj-Napoca Abstract: The former “Eastern Europe” until 1989 became “Central Europe” and is now part of the North- Atlantic Alliance and the European Union. The new “Eastern Europe”, under the soft, Eurocratic name of “Eastern Neighbourhood”1, laying from Belarus in the North to Azerbaijan in the South, switched from the status of Western frontier of the Soviet Union until 1991 to the one of a disputed “buffer zone” between Russia and the West. Formally, the six countries included in the EU programme of Eastern Partnership might have a European perspective, more or less realistic. Three of them have already signed and ratified the Association Agreements with the EU (Republic of Moldova, Georgia and Ukraine), while the other three member states (Belarus, Armenia and Azerbaijan) have not expressed this strategic option and remained, politically and economically, close to Russia. Moscow saw the political and economic process of the rapprochement between the West and the former Eastern European Soviet republics as an “aggression over its own specific interests”2 in the region, as Foreign Minister Lavrov uses to say. My hypothesis affirms that the “Cold War II” (sometimes called “hybrid war”), accompanied with increasing economic pressures on Eastern European countries and manipulation of Russian ethnic minorities in the neighbouring states, was deliberately trigged by Russia in order to avoid the EU and NATO advance in the region and thus keep the West away from its European frontiers. Frozen conflicts are therefore “the best solution” for Russia to make Ukraine, Moldova or Georgia incompatible with the status of EU or NATO territories. This paper3 aims therefore to define some major regional opportunities, vulnerabilities and 1 Details at European Neighbourhood Info Centre, http://www.enpi-info.eu/index.php, March 2014 2 As an example, see RIA Novosti, “Lavrov says Russia Not Losing Battle with US for Influence in Europe”, September 13, 2014, http://en.ria.ru/politics/20140913/192912612/Lavrov-Says-Russia-Not-Losing-Battle- With-US-for-Influence-in.html, consulted in October 2014. 3 This presentation, delivered in the October 2014 colloquium in Cluj-Napoca, was subsequently extended, modified, updated and published in a different version as: Valentin Naumescu, “Introduction: The New 3 On-line Journal Modelling the New Europe Issue no. 15/2015 dilemmas in the post-Vilnius context, and explore the complex perspectives of the new Eastern Europe, under its current name of the EU’s Eastern Neighbourhood. Keywords: Eastern Neighbourhood, Eastern Partnership, Association Agreement, Russia, Ukraine. 1. Introduction: “Eastern Europe” - a fluid geopolitical concept The region of Europe located between Germany and Russia underwent a process of repeated renames after the World War II. More or less, all successive labels assigned to this group of countries have had some ideological connotations. In other words, Eastern Europe was always politically defined. In a 2014 article, I detailed my understanding of how the pre-1989 Eastern Europe, based on the ideological perspective of the Cold War, became Central Europe after the NATO and EU successive enlargements, and how the post-Soviet European and South-Caucasus republics, once part of the Soviet Union, became the new Eastern Europe. (Naumescu, 2014, 90-93) Before 1989, “Eastern Europe” was the generic name given in the West to the group of eight communist countries4 beyond the Iron Curtain, other than the Soviet Union which was treated distinctly. Geographically, it was not so accurate, since Prague for instance is on the West of Vienna. Altogether, the USSR and the “Eastern Europe” were forming the “socialist bloc”, rivalling with the Western bloc in the so-called Cold War. As per Keith Crawford’s analysis, “from the Western viewpoint there was little difference between the various countries of Soviet-dominated ‘Eastern Europe’: they were all part of what former US President Ronald Reagan once called the ‘evil empire’. […] So once they were freed from the yoke of Soviet occupation, they sought to distance themselves quickly from the idea of ‘Eastern Europe’, with all its previous, mostly negative connotations”. (Crawford, 1996, 1-2) ‘Eastern Europe’ and Cold War II” in Valentin Naumescu and Dan Dungaciu, (eds.) The European Union’s Eastern Neighbourhood Today: Politics, Dynamics, Perspectives, Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2015. 4 East Germany (GDR), Czechoslovakia, Poland, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia and Albania 4 On-line Journal Modelling the New Europe Issue no. 15/2015 The year 1989 brought the perspective of a new name that had to be assigned to the former “Eastern Europe”, once they succeeded to abolish their communist regimes and took distance from the Soviet Union led by Gorbachev. The new concept of “East Central Europe” (ECE) reflected both a desire to return to their Central European cultural identity but also to make clear that none of them is an appendix of the Soviet Empire, still existing at that time. The number of states increased from eight to thirteen: East Germany (GDR, which very soon disappeared after the German reunification in October 1990), Poland, the Czech and the Slovak Republics (after the