Romania’s Regional Policy between the Current Realities and the Challenges of the 2014-2020 Programme Period

When it comes to its results, the 2007-2013 cohesion policy has already faced a serious criticism: the experts consider that the actual functioning of this policy takes up a lot of resources whereas a good set of other policies could produce the conditions for healthier growth. Possible improvements are discussed in relation to the increase in competitiveness, with the industrial structure, human resources, accessibility, innovation, environmental quality as the main drivers. They are expressed by the “Europe 2020” agenda, which envisages as thematic priorities the smart, sustainable and inclusive growth, connected to the headline targets translated into the national ones. However, voices especially from the lagging behind countries express worries about the chances offered to these countries by the new cohesion policy architecture to support their current priorities, predicted to manifest after 2013 as well. One of the possible responses consists in the contribution of various national and sub-national economic policies to economic, social and territorial cohesion combined with the assessment of the relative importance of the EU cohesion policy in the design and implementation of national economic policies meant to promote cohesion (e.g. EPRC, 2010). Based on these overall considerations, this paper proposes a discussion on the challenges to the Romania’s regional policy in the next programme period, aiming at revealing how the new objectives can be reached given the existing economic and institutional framework on the one hand and the drawbacks of the previous financial exercise on the other hand: in other words, it examines whether the facts of the past and present can serve as useful lessons about “do’s” and “don’ts “ in the 2014-2020 period.