Joining the European Union

Project Overview | Country Background | The Legacy of Commuism -10 years of severe economic instability | Romania and the European Union | Economic and Social Improvements | Joining the European Union - Pros and Cons | Sources

While the EU Commission praises Romania for the improvements it already achieved, it also requires the government to work towards “strengthening macroeconomic stability, carrying out intensive economic reforms, gradual decrease of inflation, cutting arrears, improving transparency and stability in the fiscal system, liberalization of prices and adjustments of regulated prices, accelerating privatization, improving administrative procedures for companies entering and leaving the market and improving the legal framework necessary for developing a market economy” (Ernst & Young Doing Business In Romania 2005).

The Romanian government still has to achieve improvements in the following fields:

-enact better targeted reforms to fit EU requirements

-better control industrial production

-fight more efficiently against corruption

-stimulate private sector growth, restructure the energy sector

-ensure a higher level of food safety

-achieve further improvements in the civil service reform and justice reform (prefent trafficking in human beings, better child protection, better integration for disabled and mentally ill people, better integration of the Roma minority)

-achieve further improvements in the quality of legislation, so that laws are very clear and limit any opportunities for briberies and corruption especially in areas like taxation, licencies or permits)

-improve local autonomy; decentralize power to include lower levels, aso that local governments can effectively implement new responsibilities granted by law and better serve their communities