Study visit to Romania

October 2006

The third study week of the Politeia programme 'European Exchange of Good Practices in the Field of Participation and Citizenship of Underrepresented Groups' was organised by Asociatia Pro Democratia (APD) and took place in Romania from 18 until 22 September 2006. Just as during the previous two exchanges, organised in the Netherlands and Ireland, the focus of this exchange was on the political situation of the host country, Romania in this case, and the different projects organised by APD.

One of the strengths of Asociatia Pro Democratia is that the organisation has 30 branches or clubs throughout Romania with more than 1200 participating citizens. Together they strive to fulfill APD’s mission ‘to strengthen democracy in Romania by promoting civic participation’. During the study week participants (from the Netherlands, Ireland, Slovenia and Romania) visited some of these clubs to get an idea of the different activities organised by them.

The core activity of APD when it was founded in 1990 was to monitor elections and political structures from the perspective of accountability and transparency. This monitoring is still an important part of APD’s work, but many other projects have been developed on top of this.

Especially interesting are the projects developed for youth, since other Politeia partners run projects on youth as well. The Model European Union and Youth Parliament organised in Bucharest, and the Junior APD Membership in APD Club Foscani are examples of this. The project Development of Small Rural Communities by Civic Involvement aims at reaching and involving people living in rural areas in local and national politics. The lack of crucial matters, like good infrastructure, trust and basic education, hinders the participation of this group.

There were many more interesting topics to discuss, for example the political involvement of Roma and women, but although these are very crucial topics when discussing underrepresented groups, there was unfortunately not enough time to discuss these issues at length.

Finally, to give the participants a wider impression of the country, some important cultural and historal sites were visited as well, for example the Village Museum in Bucharest and the fortified medieval Bran Castle. This castle was built in 1377 to protect nearby Brasov from invaders, and is often referred to as Dracula's Castle. It is said that Vlad Tepes used Bran Castle as headquarters for his incursions into Transylvania and rumour and legends suggests that Bram Stoker based his central character Dracula on Vlad Tepes. But this was long before democracy was introduced to the area…..

Suzanne Jansen and Ivo Hartman, IPP, Dutch Centre for Political Participation