Real Economic Convergence – European and National Dimension

Abstract

The effects of European integration upon the support to economic and social development in the EU Member States, upon the convergence process and bridging up the gaps between the Member States represents a field of particular interest, both for researchers and for practioners. In Romania, the governmental policy with regard to the economic-social convergence seems to have a relatively diffuse formulation, being rather included in the regional development policy, for which the Convergence Program 2008–2011 was designed. It is considered that the complex economic-social convergence process from any country or community of states can be approached from two main perspectives: as stage of convergence fulfillment and as intensity of the convergence fulfillment process. The general statistical analysis of the economic convergence process is based upon two relevant sets of indicators: economic structure indicators and economic performance indicators. Very illustrating for the development gap to be recovered by convergence is the fact that out of the 15 regions with the lowest development level from EU-27, six regions are from Romania (Center – 38%, North-West – 36%, South-East – 33%, South-Muntenia – 32%, South-West Oltenia – 30%, North- East – 25%). Starting from the theoretical concepts related to the regional economic convergence, generating social cohesion, and the system of related measurement indicators system, the paper intends to present the state of things in this field in the European Union, on the basis of certain macroeconomic or demo-economic quantitative evaluations, from which certain tendencies in the regional convergence evolution can be identified. The second level of regional economic convergence methodology application targets Romania’s real economy, namely two important sectors: the industrial non-financial – banking SMEs and agriculture.real convergence, regional competitiveness, regional disparity, regional density.