Südosteuropa Mitteilungen, 2019, Issue No: 03-04, Page Range: 56-71


The purpose of the article is to explore the current state of the Romanian party system and its main parties in order to obtain a better understanding of Romania’s relevance within the EU as well as the positions it expresses on some of the main topics of the EU’s agenda. Based on classical approaches in literature on parties and party systems, such as Sartori’s taxonomy and indicators like electoral volatility or effective number of parties, the author provides an outlook on the evolution of the Romanian party system focused on the legislative changes that shaped the current dynamic. These factors had a direct impact on the outcome of the recent elections for the European Parliament in May 2019 and, foreseeably, on the results of the upcoming presidential elections in November 2019 as well as of the local and national elections in 2020. Romania is undergoing frequent changes in the legislation, often contradictory in nature. Therefore the future of the party system, as well as the faith in upcoming elections, remains uncertain.