LOCAL BRAND DEVELOPMENT IN THE CONTEXT OF REGIONALIZATION AND EUROPEAN INTEGRATION

Currently Romania is in the process of regionalization whose foundations were laid in the "Green Paper regional development in Romania", elaborated under the aegis of the EU Delegation in our country. Regional development is a defining concept of EU construction and at the same time it constitutes a monitoring parameter of any country that wishes to join this structure. Not incidentally, one of the most important directions of the European Commission is called "Regional development and social cohesion”. Against the background of regional development trends, the brand of the region is the one that will make the difference. The concept of branding applied to countries, cities and regions began to be used in the mid-90s in order to support these geographical areas in their fierce competition in the competitive environment. In this era of "super-brands" is nothing unusual to consider a city, a country or a region as being a successful brand.