ROMANIA'S INDUSTRIAL POLICY TOWARDS THE 2020 STRATEGY1 CASE STUDY – MECHATRONICS

: Within the 2020 Strategy, the European Commission launched in 2010 a new industrial policy strategy that outlined the actions needed in order to strengthen Europe’s competitiveness and attractiveness, as a place for investment and production, including the commitment to monitor regularly the implementation of these policies. One should note that the current industrial policy is very different from what the Commission proposed in 2007, when the crisis had not yet been felt [COM. no.374/2007}. Compared with the industrial policy in 2007, current programs have been adapted to meet the realities trying to keep the overall objectives of the development strategy of the Lisbon Agenda. In 2012, the Commission notes that in the case of Romania [COM. no.582], it “specializes in sectors that require low innovation and education”, and that on national level there is a “chronic lack of investments” in innovation and R&D; this is due to lack of national strategy, without which there is no coordination and integration of “industrial and innovation policies”, furthermore the cooperation between responsible institutions is very low. Given the current state of affairs in Romania, our work aims to draw attention to the opportunities represented by the interdisciplinary field of Mechatronics, based on experience and tradition in our country. To this end, the authors present some of the results and conclusions of a foresight exercise conducted on this field. Conclusions express, on a smaller scale, all the inconveniences of the Romanian industry, but also emphasize the positive outlook of this field in full ascent.