After the Communist rulership ended and the former Communist dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu was executed in the midst of the bloody Romanian Revolution of December 1989, the National Salvation Front (FSN) seized power, led by Ion Iliescu. The FSN transformed itself into a massive political party in short time and overwhelmingly won the general election of May 1990, with Iliescu as president. These first months of 1990 were marked by violent protests and counter-protests, involving most notably the tremendously violent and brutal coal miners of the Jiu Valley which were called by Iliescu himself and the FSN to crush peaceful protesters in the University Square in Bucharest.

Subsequently, the Romanian government undertook a programme of free market economic reforms and privatization, following a gradualist line rather than shock therapy throughout the early and mid 1990s. Economic reforms have continued, although there was little economic growth until the 2000s. Social reforms soon after the revolution included easing of the former restrictions on contraception and abortion. Later governments implemented further social policy changes.

Political reforms have been based on a new democratic constitution adopted in 1991. The FSN split that year, beginning a period of coalition governments that lasted until 2000, when Iliescu's Social Democratic Party (then the Party of Social Democracy in Romania, PDSR, now PSD), returned to power and Iliescu again became President, with Adrian Năstase as Prime Minister. This government fell in the 2004 elections amid allegations of corruption, and was succeeded by further unstable coalitions which have been subject to similar allegations.

During the recent period, Romania has become more closely integrated with the West, becoming a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in 2004^[103] and of the European Union (EU) in 2007.^[104]