Mission
The EDRC's mission is to contribute to the construction of democracy in Romania by improving the country's interethnic climate and promoting principles of ethnocultural peace and justice based on institutional solutions acceptable both to majority and minorities.

Background
In its endeavor to accommodate a large number of national minorities, representing a significant percentage of the total population, Romania has to face several challenges on the road to democracy.
Progress toward democracy is hindered by several problems that continue to plague Romania's handling of minority questions, as well as other aspects of development, although the past ten years have witnessed a number of noteworthy civic initiatives in this field. These problems include, beside certain forms of discriminatory practices that still persist in the public sphere, the lack of widely accepted institutional solutions for accommodating ethnocultural difference, a shortage of qualified policy-makers to address the diverse needs of the country's eighteen minorities, and a generally underdeveloped institutionalized framework for interethnic dialogue which might contribute to raising awareness on various problems related to ethnocultural diversity.
In spite of an increased interest in ethnocultural matters, particularly in the context of possible future incorporation into the EU and the Stability Pact for South-Eastern Europe, there have been few practical initiatives made by existing institutions (either governmental or non-governmental) for developing a comprehensive, non-biased and sufficiently professional approach to the problem related to the institutionalized forms of coexistence between majority and minorities.

Strategy
In order to achieve its goals and to address the problems identified above, the EDRC hopes to become active in the following main fields of activities:

• collecting available information, data and initiatives on ethnic minorities, and making these available to parties interested in real dialogue about different aspects of ethnocultural diversity;
• providing support to initiatives dedicated to developing new approaches to interethnic relations based on the mutual understanding and acceptance of cultural differences;
• organizing advocacy campaigns designed for the intellectual and political elite of both the majority and minority, in order to develop less aggressive and more pragmatic approaches to minority issues;
• offering training and assistance in conflict prevention, conflict resolution and conflict management;
• facilitating the exchange of information and the communication process between minority and majority organizations; and
• promoting alternative approaches to multicultural education for both majority and minorities, reflecting the historical role and contribution of the country's various minorities and attending to the particular needs of different minorities in terms of education (while attempting to prevent the misuse of minority education issues in political debate).