In 2017 Romania celebrated a decade of membership in the European Union. The year also had special symbolism for EU itself because on 25 March 2017, on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the Treaties of Rome, President Jean-Claude Juncker launched the debate on the "future of Europe". Those events triggered the need for more critical reflections on the role of the new member states like Romania in shaping the "future of Europe" inside the deepening and widening dilemma, but also on the role of EU in the international scene in the post-Brexit era, on the principle of resilience in EU Global Strategy, on the difficulties of European integration of the Western Balkans and on the security evolutions in the Black Sea area. In this context, we decided to focus on Romania's actions towards its sometimes called "troubled neighborhood", caught between the conflict in Ukraine and the instability in the Western Balkans, in the context of the ever more pressing need for Bucharest's strategic recalibration and preparation for Romania's Presidency for the Council of the European Union in the first semester of 2019. This study aims to analyze how Romania contributes to the process of democratic transition of the Eastern Partnership and Western Balkans countries through the transfer of expertise and of their own lessons learned. We focused on the transfer of best practices in Official Development Assistance projects carried out by Romania in the two regions in the last 10 years, on the basis of which we made a set of specific recommendations. Overall, we hope the book is a useful tool for policymakers interested in regional democracy promotion, as well as for students and scholars in the fields of international relations and EU studies.

Prof. univ. Dr. Iordan Barbulescu (coordinator)