EU Enlargement and Illiberalism: How Romania’s Authoritarian Legacy Shapes the Country’s Identity and Voice Within the EU

Illiberalism and extreme right are on the rise in most former communist-totalitarian countries from Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) 20 years after they joined the European Union (EU). That trend is picking up despite economic advancement and initial democratic consolidation. This paper will explore Romania’s integration experience to provide an interpretive overview, contribute to the broader debates in the Europeanization literature concerning the EU’s eastern enlargement, and show how the enlargement process plays a role in current illiberal trends and anti-EU narratives in CEE, with implications for the future of the Union. This paper aims to provide an interpretive account of Romania’s transformation in the aftermath of the totalitarian regime. It emphasizes the role of the European Union in both transcending the legacies of totalitarianism and augmenting the traumas left behind by such a regime. Methodologically, the paper relies on a qualitative-interpretive methodology, emphasizing that social phenomena are made sense of through interpretation. (Bevir & Rhodes, 2015) The paper contributes an empirical narrative embedded in Romania from the 1990s to 2024. It brings to the fore ways of seeing both the EU and Romania’s transformation connected to the lived experience of local communities where significant transformations unfold as society becomes increasingly polarized.