The EU funding contribution to regional growth and regeneration in Romania. A Focus on the North-East Region

Romania's communist regime used forced industrialization and urbanization policies as a solution for speeding-up the pace of development in the lagging areas, which resulted in reducing regional disparities. However, after 1989 there areas were the first that suffered the hardships of economic restructuring, the economic and social discrepancies at territorial level recording an important increase. The accession to the EU has created good opportunities for the economic regeneration of the lagging regions provided the European funds allocated to them be absorbed and employed in an effective and efficient manner. Based on these overall considerations this paper proposes a case study in the North-East region of Romania. This region, with the lowest GDP/capita in the country has an absorption rate higher than the Regional Operational Programme's national average and a commendable expertise in the implementation of the regional development projects. The research has investigated to what extent these promising results reflect the objectives of the strategy outlined in the programme documents of the 2007-2013 financial exercise, aiming at a balanced territorial development. The significance of the case study is twofold: on the one hand it offers a spotlight on a very sensitive area of Romania in terms of regional development level; on the other hand it discusses the added value, strategic quality and administrative capacity which have made it possible to record results above the average in the implementation process. In line with the regional problem and the identified needs and strengths, the enterprise support has been chosen as the policy heading for this study. There is a clear continuity between the priority axes and key areas of intervention focusing on enterprise support in the ROP 2007-2013 and the enhancement of the SME competitiveness in the Cohesion Policy for 2014-2020, as one of the key areas for economic growth and job creation. The desk research ? with inquiries into the most important programming documents and result reports relating to the ROP in Romania and, in particular in the North-East region, plus the large volume of data analysis ? have been accompanied by interviews with the persons involved in the implementation process ? from local authorities to experts and beneficiaries at national, regional and county level. The research has been undertaken under the auspices of the EU ? FP7 GRINCOH project.