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Country Profile | Romania
In the course of the 2014-2020 financiaal framework, Romania has been allocated a total of €36.47 billion from the European Structural and Investments Funds (ESIF) to be invested in various areas, to help the country reach the level of other European nations in terms of growth, employment and infrastructures.
In fact, the ESI Funds in Romania will be used to reach a variety of targets:
- Improve the country’s competitiveness by strengthening the links between research, innovation, smart specialisation areas and competitive sectors, and boosting technology transfer.
- Support SMEs, farms and cooperatives, fishery and aquaculture holdings, contributing to modernisation, higher productivity and agricultural restructuring.
- Invest in energy, climate change and resource efficiency, with a focus on environmental conservation and protection.
- Investing in transport accessibility, upgrading railways, new roads, and new metro lines to shorten average travel times.
- Increase labour-market participation to boost the employment rate.
- Promote social inclusion and combat poverty.
- Enhance the reform of public administration and the effectiveness of the justice system.
For the 2014-2020 financial framework Romania saw an allocation of €36.47 billion to be invested in various areas through eight national and regional programmes. From Chart 1 is possible to see that the largest budget allocation comes from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), which allowed Romania to use €12.9 billion, 35.3% of the total.
Following the ERDF, the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development (EAFRD) distributed €9.6 billion, just above one quarter of the €36.47 billion total budget. Other significant funding was granted by the Cohesion Fund (CF) and European Social Fund (ESF), with budgets of €8.1 billion and €5.4 billion respectively. The remaining €500 million came from the Youth Employment Initiative (YEI) and the European Maritime and Fisheries Fund (EMFF).
To fully understand the EU funding budget of the Romanian government, Chart 2 gives an overview of the total available budget divided into categories of expenditures: the building of network infrastructures in the transport and energy sectors has the bigger share, with €7 billion allocated thanks to the ERDF and CF funds.
Country facts:
Name: Romania
Capital: Bucharest
Government: Unitary Semi-presidential Republic
Population: 19.151.817
Area: 238.397 km²
GDP per capita: €24.670