Envisioning Romania’s Path to Sustainable Development: A Prognostic Approach

Abstract

The objectives of sustainable development aim to find a balance between economic, social, and ecological plans through which to reduce the use of the planet’s resources without somehow affecting human well-being. As we have already entered the second half of the time allotted to achieve these goals, it is necessary to note what progress has been made and to have a future analysis of what may happen to see what can be done to bring this plan to an end. Hence, the aim of this paper is to assess the extent to which Romania is projected to attain its sustainable development goals. In order to be able to forecast the route that some of the sustainable development objectives are heading towards (among which there are elements related to agriculture, energy poverty, pollution, innovation, youth education, etc.), values were forecast for a period of three years using the ARIMA method, having as historical data the period 2015–2021. According to the analysis carried out, for some objectives, the situation seems to be flourishing, but this is not the case for all the analyzed indicators. Thus, it should be taken into account that, at the European level, Romania occupies, in many cases, low positions in terms of the progress made and that it is possible that some of the objectives will not be met.