History of Romania since 1989 unstable coalitions which have been subject to similar allegations. During the period Romania has become more closely integrated with the West, becoming a member of NATO in 2004 and of the European Union in 2007. 1989 marked the fall of Communism in Eastern Europe. A mid-December protest in Timișoara against the eviction of a Hungarian minister (László Tőkés) grew into a country-wide protest against the Ceaușescu régime, sweeping the dictator from power. On 21 December, President Nicolae Ceaușescu had his apparatus gather a mass-meeting in Bucharest downtown in an attempt to rally popular support for his regime and publicly condemn
Nicolae Militaru Nicolae Militaru Nicolae Militaru (November 10, 1925 – December 27, 1996) was a Romanian general who served as Defense Minister between December 1989 and February 1990. A graduate of the M. V. Frunze Military Academy in Moscow, he commanded the Romanian Land Forces' 2nd Army from 1969 to 1978. That year, under suspicion for being a GRU agent and for plotting against dictator Nicolae Ceauşescu, he was retired from active duty and made an assistant to the Defense Minister. A "Securitate" plot to depose Ceauşescu existed in the early 1980s, and he is known to have joined in 1984, adding