Romania's quest for EU membership true love or seeking a marriage of convenience? /

by 1979- Ogrezeanu, Andrei

This paper brings a double contribution to the literature on public support for European integration. From an empirical perspective, it produces important systematic evidence about a largely unexplained case, testing for a wide range of variables and using survey data from Romania. From a theoretical perspective, it engages in a thorough reorganization of the theory of public support for supranational integration identifying and testing for four major competing theoretical perspectives on support for the EU. My main concern is whether the nature of determinants of support for EU accession in Romania is predominantly utilitarian or value-based. My findings suggest that while utilitarian motivations play an important role in shaping Romanian’s attitudes toward the EU, these are primarily determined by value attachments: such as European identity or attitudes towards democracy. I find also that the mass-media and the government play an influential role in the formation of attitudes toward the EU.