The Potential Sources of Change in Romania Regional Policy

• Author: Gabriela Marchis
• Pages: 546-552

European Integration - Realities and Perspectives. Proceedings 2015

546

The Potential Sources of Change in Romania Regional Policy

Gabriela Marchis1

Abstract: There have been numerous debates on a new territorial organization of Romania during 2013 and

2014. The miracle of Romania regionalization was deemed to have contradictory effects from territorial

construction to dissolution. Due to the presidential elections from the end of 2014, the process of

regionalization was postponed, but some questions are still very alive: It is necessary to regroup counties into

regions? The low development of Romania regions is caused by the lack of administrative decentralization?

In Romania, territorial reform is synonym with institu tional reform? Therefore, I consider that it is important

to identify the potential sources of change in Romanian regional policy. The political debates on Ro manian

regionalization were mainly focus on political interests, without taking in to account an important serious of

factors that can spur growth and socio-economic development across our regions. Through this paper I try to

investigate the specialised literature in ord er to identify some useful policy suggestions from regional

scientists, which would be proper for Ro mania regional development, in the current context of Eu rope 2020

strategy.

Keywords: Europe 2020 strategy; government role; creative regions; innovation

JEL Classification: R50; R58; H75

1 Introduction

Regional integration is an old desideratum of Romania, that come into life by law 151/1998, when, in

the context of adhering to European Union, 8 regions were outlined in accordance with European

NUTS II level. The lack of expertise in defining and implementing regional development policies,

together with the lack of a long-run strategic vision of policy-makers, determine that these 8 regions

to be reconfirmed by law 315/2004. Even if, according to Romanian legislation, these regions are not

territorial administrative units, the entire regional institution framework was constructed on the bases

of these 8 regions and Romania succeeded to attract European financial assistance both in pre-

accession and post-adhering periods. Without any scientific justification or practical demonstration,

during 2013 and 2014, Romanian politicians advanced the idea that there is a strong need of change in

Romanian territorial configuration and a series of debates took place on this issue and different models

of how to regroup counties into regions arise. These political debates were focus mainly on

institutional reform and on the election/nomination procedures of representatives in different

1Associate Professor, PhD, ―Danubius‖ University of Galati, Ro mania, Address: 3 Galati Boulevard, 800654 Galati,

Romania, Tel.: +40.372.361.102, fax: +40.372.361.290, Corresponding author: gabrielamarchis@univ-danubius.ro.