Parallels that Intersect – Hungarian and Romanian Foreign Policy
Parallels that Intersect – Hungarian and Romanian Foreign Policy

Summary/Abstract: Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs Kinga Göncz announced in February 2007 the completion of a preliminary study relating to Hungary’s foreign relations strategy, and hence the opportunity to commence public debate about this strategy. In Romania this debate has been ongoing since 1997, though not as an officially proclaimed process. If we compare the content of the basic documents presented by Göncz for public discussion with the prevailing issues in Romanian foreign policy, we will find that problems are addressed in vastly different ways. Three major issues that are subject to debate can be delineated among the objectives of Romania’s foreign policy strategy: namely, Romania’s international military participation (in Iraq, Afghanistan and Bosnia); the issue of Moldova and Transnistria in connection with ideas concerning the Black Sea region and Romania’s Balkan policy; and the relationship between Romania and Western Europe. Neighbourhood relations, considered as central in Hungarian strategic analyses regarding the two countries, only register as a faint undercurrent in the Romanian discourse. It is in light of the above that the article attempts to locate points at which Romanian and Hungarian foreign policy strategies might intersect.

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