European economic integration and migration in Romania

Considering the recent debates on the benefits of European economic integration, the purpose of this paper is to assess the impact of EU membership on the migration process in the case of Romania. The paper focussed on two directions of research: comparisons with neighbouring countries that are not member or candidates for EU and the explanation of the remittances based on the economic situation in the destination countries. The approach based on comparisons used difference-in-difference estimator as quantitative method, while the approach based on economic factors in destination countries employed mixed-effects models. The results based on these two approaches indicated that Romania did not send more migrants abroad in the period 2002–2017 compared to Ukraine and Republic of Moldova due its EU membership. On the other hand, Romania gained around 2.5 percentage points more remittances due its EU membership compared to Republic of Moldova and Ukraine. However, the unemployment and the GDP per capita in the destination countries are more important determinants of remittances rather than EU membership in the period 2010–2017. The results reveal that the remittances of Romanian migrants are conditioned by labour market issues in the destination countries, the unemployment in host country having a greater impact on remittances compared to GDP per capita and EU membership. It is expected that a future economic crisis will reduce remittances gained by Romania from other EU countries.