Country Profiles - The Nations of the Dacian Subregion
The Principality of Transylvania - At the end of World War III, Transylvania's territory was under Romanian control and contained a substantial minority of ethnic Hungarians. With the signing of the Warsaw treaty that ended the war, a dispute arose between Romanian and Hungarian representatives on the question of ownership of Transylvania. Hungarian delegates, with the support of Poland and the Freyist bloc countries, claimed for Hungarian ownership of the northern half of the region, according to the boundaries outlined in the 1940 second Vienna award, while Romanian delegates supported the preservation of status quo in the region, as prevailed since the end of World War II. American representatives proposed to give independence to the entirety of Transylvania as a binational state as a compromise, a proposal that was reluctantly accepted by the Central European countries and by residents of the region.
Transylvania was created as a Habsburg-reigned principality under Otto von Habsburg, the former crown prince of Austria with heavy guidance from Freyist Germany. The first years in the country’s independent existence were troublesome as both Romanians and Hungarians felt disconnected to the nation-building process imposed on them by the world, which resulted in ethnic parties calling for dissolution causing parliamentary gridlock and low-level civic unrest between the two ethnicities of the country. The unrest between Romanians and Hungarians exploded in the 1995 ethnic clashes of Târgu Mureș that resulted in a month-long period of nationwide violent clashes between both groups, sometimes supported by government officials. As the violent clashes threatened the neighboring nations and the royal family, a multinational force from the nations the Freyist block entered the nation to impose order in the torn country. For the next years, the country was managed directly by the royal family through neutral bureaucrats and moderate leaders from both sides. The Timișoara accords which brought to the switch from overt violence to hidden unrest was signed in 1998 and included the foundation of the Autonomous County of Szekelyland for the Hungarian minority within the northern region of the nation. The state's bi-national status is enhanced by the strengthening of bilingualism that is evident in the education system, signage, and city names. Most Transylvania cities have Romanian, Hungarian, and German names, due to the wide German influence of the Transylvanian Saxons which was reinforced by the royal family. Another significant pillar of the accords was maintaining open borders and cultural with both Romania and Hungary to maintain cultural unity between Hungarians and Romanians in the country and their brethren from neighboring countries.
Despite the positive effects of the accords on the nation and the end of overt violence, the effects of the ethnic divide in Transylvania can still be seen. The political system is still held stable and governed by the combination of a shaky alliance of moderates on both sides and single-issue parties and active monarchical rule, which often uses its authority to appoint ten percent of the Diet delegates in order to keep the government intact. The opposition to the existence of the nation creates strange bedfellows, as Hungarian and Romanian separatists collaborate within the opposition. The devolved administration of Szekelyland is being led by Hungarian separatists who support the dismantlement of the nation based on current autonomy lines. Romania and Hungary both expressed interest in the politics of Transylvania, and nationalist parties from both nations are maintaining close ties to their ethnic separatist counterparts within Transylvania.
Transylvania is a constitutional monarchy with a grand prince as head of state and a prime minister as head of government. The prime minister is the leader of the coalition in the Diet, the unicameral Transylvanian parliament. Szekelyland holds its own devolved assembly as well, with the first secretary being the leader of the coalition. The nation is a member of the Central European Customs Union.
The country’s economy is based on heavy industry and oil production and exports mainly to CECU nations. During the first years of the country’s existence, a large number of industries fled the country to more stable nations due to the cultural clashes that shut down the economy of the country, but the phenomenon faded away as the country had stabilized. Transylvania suffers from high levels of skilled and young emigration directed towards the ethnic home nations, as they see the situation at home unsuitable for finding high-paying job opportunities.
The Kingdom of Moldova - in the aftermath of the third world war, the historical region of Bessarabia, then encompassed within the Moldovan and Ukrainian SSRs, achieved independence as an independent kingdom, per the Warsaw treaty. Officially, Moldova is a kingdom per the conditions of the Warsaw treaty, yet practically, the country has no king as the young nation has no history of royal reign other than the Romanian monarchy. The German government, who wished to impose a locally-based government rather than a foreign monarch in order to prevent the unification of the country with the culturally similar Romania, had to come up with a different idea: Instead of appointing a royal dynasty from the distant family of Michael I, king of Romania, the German authorities decided to appoint Yaroslav Guzun, a former Soviet-era war hero, as the temporary regent to the Moldovan throne until a royal family would be selected out of the local population.
Over the years, Guzun has emerged as a reasonable and effective ruler in the fields of rebuilding the country, establishing its global position, and creating a stable government structure. For this reason, the Germans and the CECU pleaded him not to end his term as regent and to stop the active search of a royal family.
Moldova holds a significant minority of Gagauz, a Turkish people. In the last stages of the third world war, several Gagauzian officials declared a Gagauzian republic within the nowadays Gagauzian Autonomous Raion, but their attempt failed as the allied armies stampeded through the region. However, Gagauzian separatism was a major political issue in the early years of the country's existence until 1996, when an agreement was signed between the central government in Chisinau and the separatists that allowed the Gagauz to establish devolved government and assembly.
De jure, Moldova is a constitutional monarchy, with a regent as the temporary head of state and a prime minister as the head of government but due to its special government structure and the prominence of the regent in the works of the government, it is considered by most political scientists as a flawed semi-presidential republic. Practically, the regent is treated like a king of the constitutional monarchy but acts as a president in a semi-presidential republic, with the notable exception of having a life-long term. The Moldovan parliament is unicameral and appoints the prime minister. For most of its existence, Moldovan politics are mostly run by Freyist or center-right parties which support the tight relationship with CECU and continued independence, while parties favoring union with Romania or left-wing parties that were created from rebellious elements of the CPSU remained in the opposition. Moldova is an observer member of the Central European Customs Union and maintains close relationships with both Romania and Ukraine, along with its main trade partners in CECU. The country’s economy is based on the exportation of agricultural products such as grains and potatoes and industrial commodities to various Central European nations.
The Kingdom of Romania - The Warsaw treaties were not generous to Romania. The hopes of general Vasile Milea and his clique for receiving generous treatment from the allies, including a restoration of the interwar borders, replaced with a bitter disappointment as Romania was forced to allow the independence of Transylvania while Moldova became independent, despite Romanian calls for setting the Romanian eastern border on the Dniester river. While Romania still kept access to the Black sea and regained Bukovina west of the Dniester, the sense of bitterness was still present. As per the conditions of the Warsaw treaty, the Romanian monarchy was reinstalled and Michael I of house Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen assumed the throne, and the title of Dominator, once again, with heavy German guidance.
Since then, Romania was a notable country within CECU and the cultural hub of the Dacian sub-region. The nation maintains an impressive growth rate due to the steady influx of German investment and political stability maintained by king Michael I and his successor and distant cousin, Paul I, who ascended to the throne after the former’s abdication due to health reasons in 2016. Most of the country’s political spectrum adheres to a certain extent to Freyist principles such as constitutional monarchism, cultural conservatism, and national redemptionism, with various variants Freyist composing the main parties. The non-Freyist political field is mostly limited to the Western-European mold of Liberals and “unredeemed” left-wingers. Expansionism is a key issue in Romanian politics, as both neighboring nations of Transylvania and Moldova exist per the conditions of the Warsaw treaty, and are consisted of Romanian majorities who harbor nationalist and irredentist sentiments.
The country’s economy is diverse and based on industrial growth, oil production, and agriculture. Notable Romanian firms are Automobile Dacia, based in the Ploiesti region and Enron Petrom, a subsidiary oil and natural gas company of Enron with oil rigs and decks across Romania and Transylvania.