Valahian Journal of Economic Studies Volume 8 (22)  Issue 12017

DOI 10.1515/vjes-2017-0002

Sustainable Regional Development Policy

in Romania - Coordinates
Constanta POPESCU
Ana-Lucia RISTEA
Constantin POPESCU
Valahia University of Târgovişte, Romania
tantapop@yahoo.com

Abstract
The regional development policy appears as a coherent set of planned measures –
enlisted in the National Development Programme and in the National Regional
Development Plans – and promoted by the authorities of the central end local
administration, based on the principle of partnership with various actors (private, public
or volunteers), in order to assure a dynamic and sustainable economic and social growth,
by an efficient valorification of the regional and local potential.
The definition of the regional development policy in Romania needs to answer two
pressures, namely: one of general order, which imposes the acceptance of the EU rules
and objectives and the coordination of the regional development policy with the way the
regional development policy is understood and applied at the level of the community
countries; the second, of particular order, springs from the situation Romania experiences,
namely its still insufficient preparation to face the extremely competitive environment of
the “unique market” within the EU.
To implement a regional development policy compatible and comparable to the
EU policy in this domain, according to the “Green Charter of Regional Development in
Romania”, elaborated by the Government of Romania and the European Commission,
even since the year 1997, eight development regions have been defined (which must not be
viewed as administrative-territorial units, as they do not have juridical personality, so that
they must not be mistakenly taken for the counties).

Keywords: sustainable development, regional development, policy, strategy,

economic development

JEL Classification: Q01, R58

The regional development policy appears as a coherent set of planned measures –

written down in the National Development Programme and the National Regional
Development Plans – and promoted by the authorities of the central and local
administration, based on the principle of partnership with various actors (private, public or

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Valahian Journal of Economic Studies Volume 8 (22)  Issue 12017
volunteer), in order to assure a dynamic and sustainable economic and social growth, by an
efficient valorification of the regional and local potential (Moşteanu N. R., 2003).
The definition of the regional development policy in Romania needs to answer
two pressures, namely: one of general order, which imposes the acceptance of the EU
rules and objectives and the coordination of the regional development policy with the way
the regional development policy is understood and applied on the level of the European
community countries; the second, of particular order, springs from the situation
Romania is in, namely still insufficiently prepared to face the extremely competitive
external environment on the “unique market” inside the EU.
In order to implement a regional development policy compatible and comparable
to the EU policy in this domain, according to the “Green Charter of Regional Development
in Romania”, elaborated by the Romanian Government and the European Commission,
even since the year 1997, eight development regions have been designed, which must not
be viewed as administrative-territorial units, as they do not have juridical personality, so
that they must not be mistakenly taken for counties. These eight development regions are
also the framework for the collection of specific statistical data, according to the European
regulations emitted by EUROSTAT for the territorial classification level NUTS II, existing
in the EU. The statistical data confirm the existence of great gaps in the development
levels of these eight regions, but also of great disparities, inside them, between the
counties’ development levels.
The areas with specific development problems (issues related to the agricultural
sector, industrial decline, poorly-developed infrastructure or environmental pollution
problems) have been defined as problem areas or priority areas. These areas usually
appear as groups of towns, communes or counties correlated from the viewpoint of the
territory, with similar issues to be solved by means of regional development policies. Thus,
the areas with economic or social problems were classified into three great categories
(National Development Plan 2000-2002, 2000):
1. Traditionally underdeveloped areas, where one can find the negative effect
resulted from the synergy of: high level of structural unemployment, high ratio of the
population employed in agriculture, inadequate mortality rate. In this category have been
included areas of the counties: Botoşani and Vaslui (North-East Development Region),
Giurgiu and Teleorman (South Development Region), Maramureş and Bistriţa Năsăud
(North-West Development Region).
2. Areas of industrial decline, where the transition process led to the
considerable reduction of the number of jobs (especially in the mining and processing
industry). Compared to the traditional underdeveloped areas, the areas of industrial decline
have a relatively satisfactory infrastructure and a business environment largely permissive
for a good functioning of the market economy mechanisms. In this category were included
areas of the counties: Botoşani and Suceava (North-East Development Region), Brăila
and Buzău (South-East Development Region), Giurgiu, Teleorman and Călăraşi (South
Development Region), Hunedoara (North-West Development Region) and Braşov
(Center Development Region).
3. Structurally fragile areas, characterized by the dependence of the employed
population on only one branch or sub-branch of the heavy industry or, in some cases, on a
single company generating losses in the economy. In time, these areas were transformed in
areas of industrial decline. This third category includes areas of the counties: Neamţ
(North-East Development Region), Brăila and Galaţi (South-East Development Region),
Călăraşi, Teleorman and Dâmboviţa (South Development Region), Gorj (South-West
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Valahian Journal of Economic Studies Volume 8 (22)  Issue 12017
Development Region), Hunedoara (West Development Region) and Satu Mare (North-
West Development Region).
It ought to be remembered that there are counties containing areas with several types
of problems in their economic-social development. For instance, in the South Development
Region, Teleorman County holds areas corresponding to all the three categories mentioned
above.
In the 2002-2005 Development Plan, for example, the strategic goals of
Romania’s regional development concerned:
 promoting the mechanisms of the market economy in all the regions of the
country, in order to improve competitiveness and realize a permanent economic growth;
 promoting a harmonious spatial development of the network of localities;
 increasing the regions’ capacity of supporting their own development process;
 creating equal chances in point of the access to information, technological
research-development, continual education and training of the population in the peripheral
areas;
 promotion of differentiated policies, according to the particularities of the areas;
 reducing the development gaps between counties, between urban and rural
areas, between central and peripheral areas;
 preventing the appearance of problem areas.
The national development priorities during the period 2007-2013, enlisted in the
Development Strategy of the National Development Plan elaborated for this period, are
structured starting from a limited number of national development priorities, assuring the
concentration of the resources available on the realization of those objectives and measures
with maximal impact on reducing the gaps in relation to the EU and the internal disparities.
At the same time, considering the role of the National Development Plan, during
the period 2007-2013, namely to substantiate the access to the EU Structural and Cohesion
Plans, these priorities need to be compatible with the intervention domains of these
instruments, according to the community regulations.
Based on the sectorial and regional socio-economic analyses and SWOT analyses,
the Ministry of Public Finances had in view the following propositions concerning the
national development policies for the programming period 2007-2013:
- increasing economic competitiveness and developing the knowledge-based
economy;
- developing and modernizing the transport infrastructure;
- protecting and improving environmental quality;
- developing the human resources, increasing the employment degree and
fighting social exclusion;
- developing rural economy and increasing productivity in the agricultural sector;
- supporting a balanced participation of all the Romanian regions to the socio-
economic development process.

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Valahian Journal of Economic Studies Volume 8 (22)  Issue 12017

Box 1.
Coordinates of a sustainable development strategy
The implementation of a strategy supporting the realization of
sustainable development imposes, as a premise, the existence of an
informational database, permitting the construction of a system of indicators –
quantitative and qualitative – necessary, on the one hand, to the evaluation of the
economic-social potential of a region / county under its multiple aspects of State,
structure, dynamics and behaviour of the actors on the various markets and, on the
other hand, to the exercise of a certain orientation of the decision factors at the
level of the local communities on the sense of development, in order to maintain
efficiency and the state of balance.
The specialists classify sustainable development indicators into five great
subsystems (Toderoiu F., Bucur Carmen, 2005):
1. The subsystem of the factorial indicators, including: demo-economic and
natural resources, production means, techno-scientific progress, and
management factors (those factors contributing to the organization of the
economic agents’ structure, of the areas and of the territory, of the decision
system facilitating an efficient resource use);
2. The subsystem of the resultative indicators, including the principal
indicators characterizing: material production and consumption
services, education, culture, art, tourism, public administration
management;
3. The subsystem of the distribution and regulation indicators, where an
important place is occupied by indicators of: banking, payment balance,
revenues and goods repartition;
4. The subsystem of the demographic and social indicators, concerning
both data on the population, and social indicators (indicators of
habitat, socio-professional mobility, cultural level, social
homogenization, delinquency etc.)
5. The subsystem of national welfare indicators, having in view a set of
categories of indicators: (a) indicators of natural resources; (b)
environment value; (c) indicators of human capital (active population,
health stock, public tuition rate on forms of education); (d) indicators of
financial capital; (e) value of the cultural patrimony; (f) consumption
goods of the population (residences, long-term goods).

To conclude, sustainable development involves:

 assuring “sustainability”, the viability of all the components of a society;
 a permanent support of the development, by factors mainly internal, of cities and
villages, companies, research and education etc.;
 supporting the SMEs as true “locomotives” of a country’s economy;
 actively promoting the cooperation between the actors involved in the socio-
economic processes, a promotion that ought to benefit of the participation of the public
power as well, the State’s democratic organisms and the organisms of the civil society
(“the competition with positive sum”).
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Valahian Journal of Economic Studies Volume 8 (22)  Issue 12017
Sustainable development does not act as an autonomous, independent process. On
the contrary, a flow of processes has been constituted, which have a fundamental
action, with a strong interaction, with aspects often contradictory, in guiding the
contemporary evolutions, namely:
(1) sustainable development as a desirable alternative, yet not also “objectively”
achievable, to the development “by waste”;
(2) the passage to the knowledge-led society, as a new possible stage,
subsequent to the capitalism of the great industry of a mechanical type;
(3) globalization, as a tendency complementing localization;
(4) “downsizing” processes – i.e. proliferation of SMEs and growth of their role;
(5) Passage from “classical” to “interventionist” liberalism, which generates
even the extension of the sphere of competence of the market “correction” and
“stimulation” actions by the replacement of “government” by “governance”.
The studies realized by the EU draw the attention to the strong deficit along the
“governance” line of the globalization process: “The present stage of globalization and
increasing internationalizations and integrations of the economies is strongly marked by a
deficit of governance capabilities internationally and globally”.
In this context, “national States remain central actors in the existing system”,
which imposes a change of behaviour:
 privatization does not mean diminution of institutions’ and government’s
importance;
 less State does not mean, in a simplistic manner, more market;
 less entrepreneurial State means more institutions and more governance
capabilities; some authors call this: the passage from government to governance;
 a change in the way of conceiving governmental institutions as support “in
learning” for actions, and not just as instrument promoting the interest of the national
State;
 governance, and not just government, cooperation, not zero-sum games.
To conclude, the commitment of a territory to a sustainable development
dynamics involves the coordination of all the policies and the mobilization of all the actors
into a perspective of synergy around this dynamics. Sustainable development questions
the transversability of the collective policies and actions at all the levels.
A few examples of interpretations of policies or collective actions pursued in a
strategy of territorial development are edifying to highlight the need of convergence with
the paradigm of sustainable development (Fournier B., Raveaud P. and Le Fur R.
(coord.), 2012, as follows:
 The actions supporting the companies implanted in the area of a given
territory need to permit their own commitment to a sustainable development strategy;
in this sense, it is necessary to stimulate the companies to commit to a normative framework
such as ISO 26000, Social Corporate Responsibility;
 In matters of land fund or real estate fund, the first stake is no longer to
create new activity areas in the territory, but even before creating even a square meter of
land fund or real estate area, it will be necessary to try to valorify the existing ones;
creating new areas ought to be viewed as the last solution one could turn to. Therefore,
improvement operations are to be privileged, even the requalification of the existing built
patrimony.

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 In the arrangement domain, one of the essential stakes will be: planning a
functional mix of the territory, i.e. the fact of having available, on a territory, the set of
necessary functions (dwellings, activities, trade, administrative, cultural, mobility, leisure
equipment...) and no longer proceeding to a division of the territory into differentiated
functional areas, which are sources of numerous displacements, circulation jams, pollution
(noise, greenhouse effect gas...).
 Sustainable development is an opportunity for the economic development
of a territory, because it generates new activities, new jobs and new markets, with
synergic effects on the progressive, yet real transformation, of the existing activities.
Among these new activities we shall enumerate: State services in the domain of
constructions (energy renovation, dwelling habilitation), mobility (non-polluting urban
transport development), green areas maintenance, bio food etc.

Bibliography

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Development in Romania), Bucureşti, Editura Economică, p. 73.
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Toderoiu F., Bucur Carmen (2005), “Economia agroalimentară a României:
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