Unequal Romania. Regional disparities in Romania - How do they look like and how to overcome them?

A closer look reveals that the benefits of the post-socialist transition and European integration are distributed quite unevenly and that there is strong polarisation between different geographical areas. Although regional disparities are increasing, there is no substantial public debate on how to tackle these territorial inequalities.

Friedrich Ebert Foundation (FES) Romania and the Foundation for European Progressive Studies (FEPS)  had a debate on the growing regional disparities in Romania. During the debate the report “Unequal Romania. Socio-economic disparities 2020” was launched, carried out by FES  and FEPS together with the Research Institute for Regional and Urban Development (ILS) Dortmund. The report performs a cluster analysis, which shows that in terms of living conditions, economic indicators and social welfare, Romania can be divided into four distinct regions - what the authors call "The Four Romanias". The results of this report underline the need to overhaul the economic and social policies on the national as well as on the EU level. The launching event took place in Romanian and English, with simultaneous translation, on June 23rd, 2021, at 11.00am. During this event there were solutions presented which are needed at national and European level for overcoming regional disparities and rethinking the development model so that it offers equal opportunities and high living standards to all citizens.

If you want to find out how does each county out of the “four Romanians” look like - what are the incomes, the proportion of employees or the political participation in each region, click on the GIS map to see the regional disparities in Romania: https://fes.de/unequal-romania

The publication can be found here: