Our Romanian partner EFOR analyses the future of democracy promotion in Romania

With the assistance of the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs and the Directorate for Development and Cooperation SDC, the Swiss Democracy Foundation is hosting the international democratic event in May 2024 'Global Forum on Modern Direct Democracy'organized. The Democracy Foundation Basel continues the cooperation that has begun in Romania with representatives of Romanian civil society. At the beginning of 2025, the Romanian Think Tank Expert Forum delivered its report on the question of which initiatives, programs and collaborations to promote democracy in Romania over the last 30 years were successful and which were a failure, combined with recommendations for the future and an overview of available sources of funding. The question of how to best promote democracy is essential for all donors, such as government agencies and foundations. Central and Eastern European countries such as Romania have made great progress and successes, in particular as a result of the so-called conditionality, which was required as a prerequisite for joining the EU, NATO and IMF. Since these conditions were met around 2015, democracy has unfortunately declined, which is due on the one hand to the lack of local anchoring of all these principles and institutions, and on the other hand is in line with developments in all liberal democracies worldwide.