THE IMPORTANCE OF REGIONS IN THE REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT POLICY OF THE EUROPEAN UNION

The principles of the regional development policy at European level were taken into consideration even since 1957 with signing up the Treaty establishing the Economic European Community that stipulates that the Community mission is, among others, to promote throughout the Community a harmonious, balanced and sustainable development of the economic activities, a high labour and social protection, increase of the living standard, economic and social cohesion and solidarity among the Member States. The requirement to ensure a harmonious and balanced development of the Community area by narrowing the gaps between certain regions, contributed to the considerable increase in importance of the EU regional development policy after 1990 and mainly after 2004, with EU enlargement by the 10 former communist countries and after 2007, when Romania and Bulgaria also joined the Union. EU enlargement considerably increased the economic and social disparities both at regional and national level, and the support was focused on the less developed regions and Member States. At present, the development regions have an important role in the budgetary allocations of the European Union. The development regions in the Member States are considered a factor promoting the structural policies and they are the direct beneficiaries of the Structural Funds from which the development programs implemented at inter-regional level are funded. In Romania, the present economic development regions delimited by the “Law no. 151/1998 on regional development” were established on an arbitrary basis, without taking into consideration the inter-county links based upon organic and sustainable development. In this context, we consider that the analysis of the EU regional development policy and its implementation in Romania represents a subject on which great attention should be focused.