The European Institute of Romania (EIR) is a public institution whose mission is to provide expertise in the field of European Affairs to the public administration, the business community, the social partners and the civil society.
Studies, training, translation and communication are EIR’s key areas:
- conducting studies and policies and strategy analyses to support Romania’s development within the European Union, and exercising its attributes as a Member State;
- organizing training activities in the domain of European Affairs;
- coordinating the translation and the linguistic and legal revision of the pre-accession acquis, of the ECHR case-law, of Romanian documents of legal nature, and setting up a consistent terminology;
- stimulating public debates on European issues.
Brief history
The European Institute of Romania (EIR) started its activity in January 2000 as an organization established with the purpose to provide support to the decision-makers during Romania’s EU accession negotiation process. From the moment of its establishment, the Institute aimed at becoming an influential forum, involved in the process of raising the awareness of the Romanian society, in particular the political environment and the academia, regarding the main evolutions in the extremely complex and dynamic framework of the European Union.
After 1 January 2007, following Romania’s accession to the EU, the EIR shifted its strategic focus on the new priorities arising from Romania’s EU membership. These priorities refer mainly to the role, positions and possible alliances Romania might assume on the European scene, emphasizing the need for a deep examination at national level of the evolutions of the EU institutional framework and of the community policy-making framework.
Nowadays, the EIR functions as a public institution under the coordination of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The projects coordinated by EIR are focused on strengthening institutional capacity, and on developing specific expertise in the field of European affairs. The views presented by EIR are independent from the orientations of any public or private bodies and from the visions promoted by the political parties, interest groups or ideological movements.
EIR started out as a PHARE project and fully benefited from the financial and technical support of the program in the first three years of activity. The PHARE assistance was gradually reduced over the next two years, and from 2006 EIR’s specific activities were financed from the state budget. Under the current legal framework, the financing of EIR’s operating and capital expenditure is covered from public budget allocations and own revenue. The Institute’s team is currently made up of approximately 36 employees: experts in European studies, in training and communication, translators, revisers and administrative personnel.
The specific activities of EIR lead to the following achievements:
Research in European Affairs
- 47 pre-accession impact studies (PAIS) conducted with the purpose to formulate policy recommendations for the decision-makers involved in the negotiation process;
- 58 strategy and policy studies (SPOS) focused on some of the most relevant fields of activity meant to enhance Romania’s development and growth;
- 38 Working Papers and 8 Policy Briefs on European topics;
- 70 issues of the Romanian Journal of European Affairs, the first review in Romania focused on European affairs;
- More than 300 authors from Romania and from abroad who published academic articles in Romanian Journal of European Affairs;
- 13 international databases in which the Romanian Journal of European Affairs is indexed (e.g.: Clarivate Analytics – Emerging Sources Citation Index, SCOPUS, Proquest, EBSCO, CEEOL, HeinOnline, ERIH PLUS etc.);
- 109 bilingual editions of EIR’s Newsletter published.
Training in European Affairs
- Approximately 345 training programs and courses designed to develop the capacity of the public administration to answer adequately to the challenges of European integration;
Communication in European Affairs
- More than 290 conferences, round tables, debates and seminars organized with a view to stimulate at the national level an in-depth public debate on European issues;
- Approximately 3000 specialised publications accessible to the public through EIR’s Documentation Centre.
Translations
- More than 158 000 pages of the Official Journal (primary and secondary legislation);
- More than 21 400 standard pages of case-law of the Court of Justice of the European Union;
- More than 40 000 standard pages in the case-law of the European Court of Human Rights;
- More than 34 550 terminological entries, of which more than 25 000 have been transferred to the Directorate-General Translation of the European Commission, in order to include them in IATE;
- More than 35 specialised publications.