Facing Europe: Regional Aspects of Paradiplomatics in Chernivtsi Oblast (Current Challenges and Possible Solutions)

Abstract

The article analyzes the phenomenon of paradiplomacy as a factor of fragmentation in a globalized world, which reflects the complex processes of reducing the role of the state as an actor and a foreign policy instrument in the post-Westphalian era. Different and real processes of regionalization and transregional interaction are investigated, using paradigm diplomacy in the Chernivtsi region. The author explores the factor of increasing the role of regional elites in order to increase their own legitimacy in the context of transregional interaction in the Upper Region Euroregion.
Complexities and contradictions of transregional cooperation are considered. It’s concluded that the narrowing of this Euroregion should be avoided for ineffective communication between the managers and representatives of the bureaucracy of the three countries. The article noted that the granting of dual citizenship to representatives of the Romanian and Moldovan communities of Chernivtsi region is a certain critical milestone holding back highquality economic and social cooperation within the Upper Prut Euroregion.
The author’s proposal is to launch a joint international educational and cultural project of Ukraine and Romania «History of Bukovina of the Twentieth сentury: without stereotypes and layers». The implementation of such project will help to overcome the old stereotypes in contemporary Ukrainian-Romanian relations, being a reliable tool for a more effective cultural paradigm over the next decade. We are facing the construction of European tradition in Ukraine, as well as in Romania and Moldova, which should be worthy of puzzle. Only then will the citizens of our three countries residing in the Upper Prut Euroregion become truly status citizens of United Europe, feeling the positive effects of the development of regional paradiplomacy.