Policy In Romania Research Articles

Detached implementation: Discourse and practice in minority language use in Romania

The paper focuses on minority language policy implementation in Romania. Although the policy framework of minority language use is considered quite satisfying by many authors, a deeper analysis reveals significant problems in the implementation of these policies. Based on implementation research, the paper reveals the hidden mechanism of language policy in Romania. First, it presents evidence that without clear guidelines and tools for accountability, state authorities leave room for negotiation, and municipalities can choose whether they want to implement minority language use provisions or not. Second, rather counterintuitively, in many cases Hungarian settlements do not implement it either. All explanations point toward the fact that Hungarian political elites fail to create public pressure to force implementation, thus they choose to keep claims regarding minority language use in the symbolic and political realm. Moreover, it argues that policy implementation is not always a necessary condition for successful claim making, as the two domains are not always linked by the public. Also, it underlines the importance of micro-level analysis in the case of minority language policies, which can be achieved by putting more focus on implementation research, instead of legal and policy-based macro-analysis.

Who does the criminal policy in Romania?

The study approaches the legal side of criminal policy with respect to the national constitutional framework, in which context il will be examined the competence to legislate, the institutional actors involved in the process of lawmaking and the constitutional limits of the legislation in criminal matters, in order to answer, mainly, to the title question and, in the alternative, to the question regarding how the criminal law must be achieved in accordance with the constitutional requirements.

«Я НЕ ХОЧУ ТУТ ЗГАДУВАТИ МИНУЛЕ. МОЯ РОЛЬ – ЗАЙНЯТИСЯ СЬОГОДЕННЯМ ТА ДИВИТИСЯ У МАЙБУТНЄ»: ДІЯЛЬНІСТЬ А. ВАЙДИ-ВОЄВОДИ НА ПАРИЗЬКІЙ КОНФЕРЕНЦІЇ (ГРУДЕНЬ 1919 р. – БЕРЕЗЕНЬ 1920 р.)

The expansionist policy of Romania during the first decades of the XX century was not accidental or spontaneous. It was clearly realized by the leadership of the Kingdom within the state idea of the creation of «Great Romania». In general, the foreign policy of Bucharest during the First World War and the period of the formation of the Versailles system of the international relations were exponential in terms of the defending its own national interests and the conquest the status of the regional leader in the Balkan region. At the end of 1919, the foreign policy situation for Romania continued to stay difficult. It seemed that the combination of the internal and the external conditions had to cross out the ambitious plans of Bucharest. However, the Romanian leadership still managed to get out of the crisis situation. In November 1919, the parliamentary elections took place in the country, which is led to the change of the government. Soon it was headed by A. Vaida-Voevod. Thanks to his efforts and the activities in Paris and London he succeeded to move the «Bessarabian» problem from the place in the direction of the formal recognition of the region by the Romanian territory. The purpose of the article is the analysis of the political struggle around the «Bessarabian» question at the Paris Conference during December 1919 – March 1920. Considering the important value of the material, the short period of the work of the conference in Paris was taken by the author, because the period demonstrates in what the strained atmosphere the new map of the post-war Europe was formed. We must note that A. Vaida-Voevod’s activities in the «Bessarabian» direction had positive results for Romania. On 12 March, the Verkhovna Rada of the Entente sent the decision on the outlined question to the Romanians. It was determined in it that the Allies considered that it was not worth more to leave the unresolved questions of Bessarabia. Taking into account the preliminary conclusions of the commissions and the desires of the people of the region, they spoke out in favor of the joining of the region to Romania. At the same time, the Entente insisted that Bucharest should provide the compliance of the interests of Bessarabia on the same base as in other parts of the Kingdom. In the case of the occurrence they should be decided by the League of Nations.

Religious education and spiritual development as a cultural component of the lifelong learning policy in Romania. The example of orthodox Christianity

ABSTRACTIn a context of growing globalisation and European integration, Christian religious education seems to be more and more neglected within the social debate. Given the differences between European countries, the question may arise: What is the relevant situation in Romania? The article analyses the religious education and spiritual development as a cultural component of lifelong learning policy in Romania, based on more than 20 semi-structured interviews conducted with Romanian professionals, research workers, teachers and experts in education. In order to describe the role played by religious education in Romania three main aspects may be quoted: (1) Spiritual development completes the economic and social development of people; (2) The national culture and values contribute to the promotion of life models in accordance with Christian orthodox religion; and (3) The integral development of the person is part of the lifelong learning policy in Romania and includes orthodox spirituality. These aspects are analysed on the basis of the answers given by national experts in lifelong learning and religious education.

Foreign policy strategy of the Romania. Evolution, principles, goals

In this article, the author attempts to determine the strategic directions of Romania’s foreign policy. Significant geopolitical events in Europe expose the need to clarify the priorities of the policy pursued by the country. Historically in foreign relations Romania has employed diplomatic strategies that allowed it, according to historians, to «anoeuvre» between the centres of power on the international arena. However, in the early 2000’s a departure from this tradition has become apparent, especially during the administration of Traian Basescu (2004–2014), which also coincided with the country’s joining NATO in 2004 and EU in 2007. After the collapse of the socialist bloc Romania set its priorities, firstly, in the direction of joining both NATO and EU and later bringing the country in accordance with their norms and standards was put high on the agenda. Having become a member of the Alliance and an EU-state, Romania has been determining its foreign policy from the point of view of synchronizing its strategic goals with those of NATO and EU. Along with this, the strategic partnership with the US and the attached to it significant importance for Romania dictate the one-sided political approach deprived of the traditional manoeuvre capability in foreign affairs. This is also proven by the fact that despite the declared and established privileged relations with a number of countries, the level of their “strategic” execution is very low in reality. That being said, the direction of the relations between Romania and the Russian Federation, whose views on many regional and international issues differ, are likely to be greatly influenced by the state of the Russia-West affairs. Having analyzed the historic and current aspects of Romania’s foreign policy, the author determines the preservation of the euroatlanticism course as the main direction of the development of the foreign policy of Romania.

An Overview of the Romanian Asylum Policies

Migration flows affecting Europe over recent years have generated a wave of solidarity but also fear and threats. European countries are divided into host countries or countries of transit due to their economic attractiveness but from the beginning, it was clear that asylum policies were far from similar and insufficiently flexible. Although Romania is considered as one of the transit countries for immigrants heading to Western Europe and it has not been confronted with an influx of refugees, it has developed specific policies in line with the acquis communautaire in order to be prepared for any situation of influx. The purpose of this research is to assess how asylum policies have been implemented in Romania and what improvements are necessary in order for them to become more sustainable. In Romania’s case, we used a SWOT analysis in our research methodology. This study aims to address relevant topics regarding the recent increasing trends of asylum applications and to analyse how the asylum policies in Romania can generate an adequate response. Furthermore, specialized institutions may consider our recommendations on how to improve the management of the asylum system in Romania.

Drug Policy in Romania

ObjectivesThe objectives of this article were to describe the characteristics of the drug policy in Romania in the last 10 years and to present the consequences in terms of patient accessibility to drugs. MethodsThe Romanian health care system with pricing and reimbursement legislation was studied while considering the evolution of pricing and reimbursement processes, the key stakeholders, and the reasons behind changes. A critical appraisal was done covering published materials on the effects of pricing and reimbursement decisions. ResultsRomania uses an external reference pricing model considering the lowest price from 12 European Union countries. The result is the visible list price, which is used by the payer as the basis for the reimbursement prices. The reimbursed price depends on the type of drug and the therapeutic area. The claw-back taxation reduces the reimbursement prices by another 12% to 75%, depending on the type of reimbursement for each drug: unconditional (more than 4000 drugs) or conditional (19 drugs) reimbursement. As a consequence, the Romanian prices are one of the cheapest in the European Union, some drugs are leaving the country subject to intracommunity trade and more than 2000 drugs have disappeared from the market in the last 5 years. ConclusionsThe drug policy in Romania is centered on price reduction using different techniques and no value-based criteria are used. The pricing is not included in the health technology assessment system, managed entry agreements are not used, and the main effect visible at the patient level is the lack of drugs for some therapeutic areas.

Consumer Food Security and Labeling Intervention on Food Products through Public Policies in Romania

The correct understanding of consumers’ food labeling knowledge and perceptions is a prerequisite to develop and implement coherent and appropriate food safety policies. One objective of the paper was to discover how often consumers access and use specific food label information. Another objective was to explore stakeholders’ preferences for several public policy options relevant for food safety. In this respect, a survey on a sample of 312 Romanian consumers and the evaluation of several public policy options by four stakeholder groups (food producers and sellers, doctors, fitness trainers, and consumers) were carried out. The results revealed that the most frequently read types of information on the label were “expiration date” and “price”, closely followed by “quantity” and “brand”. Among tested public policies, those related to the traffic light labels and to the social interest messages with health claims were rewarded with high scores by investigated stakeholders. Although nutrition has a decisive impact on health state, nutrition information was not frequently read by people, thus justifying the implementation of a public policy meant to enhance consumers’ interest in and reading frequency of nutrition information on food label.

Environmental Tax Policy in Romania in the Context of the EU: Double Dividend Theory

In the last decade, environment protection gained much more significance in designing the economic policies in the European Union (EU) countries. There are many economic and policy differences between the European countries, despite of the harmonization process inside the EU area. The path of implementation of the environmental tax reforms in the EU countries differs greatly from one country to another and the effects of such taxation in the economic and environmental areas are manifold. The authors of this paper have agreed to undertake the task of testing the double dividend hypothesis of the environmental taxation in Romania (an energy-intensive country) versus the EU area as a whole, using Vector Error Correction Model (VECM) techniques and Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) estimations. Our findings show that this hypothesis is validated neither in Romania (in the economic growth area) nor in the EU area as a whole (in the unemployment area). Therefore, Romania cannot increase the level of the environmental tax for supporting economic growth, but it can grant environmental subsidies for decreasing the emissions and supporting the economic growth. This could be achieved by expanding the tax labor base and by collecting higher budgetary revenues to sustain such environmental subsidies. As far as the EU area is concerned, it is a necessary measure to continue the descending trend for the labor taxation to achieve the goal of improving the employment rate.

About Opportunity of Fiscal Relaxation and Wage Increase in Romania or What is Like to be Caught on the Wrong Foot

Monetary and fiscal policies are intervention tools in economy, but the manner and the magnitude of the intervention must be ensured with a technical analysis, close to what really happens, in order to prevent shocks that may be higher than for the one who makes the intervention. It is logical that the need of fiscal policy relaxation should be identified depending on the phases of the economic cycle. Fiscal policy in Romania saw a major change starting with 2016: Romania passed to tax reduction, while increasing the expenses at the same time. In other words, the fiscal policy was massively relaxed, the budget deficit in the ESA definition increased from 0.8% of the GDP in 2015, to 2.8% of the GDP in 2016. There were several analyses on this relaxed policy, especially regarding its sustainability, and few analyses regarding the efficiency of this policy in fulfilling the main goal, namely economic growth. Moreover, the new Government committed itself to following an economic agenda based on the vision of “intelligent, sustainable and inclusive” economic growth, anchored by implementation of a growth strategy based on the wage led growth.

Sustainable Regional Development Policy in Romania - Coordinates

Abstract The regional development policy appears as a coherent set of planned measures - enlisted in the National Development Programme and in the National Regional Development Plans - and promoted by the authorities of the central end local administration, based on the principle of partnership with various actors (private, public or volunteers), in order to assure a dynamic and sustainable economic and social growth, by an efficient valorification of the regional and local potential. The definition of the regional development policy in Romania needs to answer two pressures, namely: one of general order, which imposes the acceptance of the EU rules and objectives and the coordination of the regional development policy with the way the regional development policy is understood and applied at the level of the community countries; the second, of particular order, springs from the situation Romania experiences, namely its still insufficient preparation to face the extremely competitive environment of the “unique market” within the EU. To implement a regional development policy compatible and comparable to the EU policy in this domain, according to the “Green Charter of Regional Development in Romania”, elaborated by the Government of Romania and the European Commission, even since the year 1997, eight development regions have been defined (which must not be viewed as administrative-territorial units, as they do not have juridical personality, so that they must not be mistakenly taken for the counties).

Gender Mainstreaming and Work-Family Reconciliation. An Analysis of Family Policies in Romania and Germany

Gender Mainstreaming (GM) was introduced by the European Union (EU) in 1997, as a strategy to achieve gender equality in all policy areas. Yet, European countries greatly diverge in their progress of implementation. We investigate the role GM played in Romanian and German policies aimed at achieving work-family reconciliation, using concepts from feminist policy analysis. Our analysis shows that pre-existing policies and discourse, the economic situation, as well as the relationship with the EU have shaped and impeded the implementation process of GM in both countries. While Germany slowly moves towards more egalitarian policies, GM as label and strategy did not succeed. In Romania, GM has only impacted work and family reconciliation indirectly through EU legislation.

Examining Public Policy in Romania: Is It Transparent and Legitimated?

In the last decades, in the context of many economic and financial crisis, the policy-making became the heart of government. In Romania, they represents the main instruments for solving the citizens’ problem: health care, education, the environment, and the mechanisms by which public money is budgeted.Therefore, this paper analyses the transparency and consultation in policy-making process from the view of different policy-making stages. The paper discusses the different mechanism and procedure designed and applied by Romanian government in policy-making process. Finally, it describes possible links between policy-making capacity and indicators for transparency, starting from Joseph Stiglitz assertion on the adverse effects of secrecy in government policy-making, “with more mistakes, public officials become more defensive; to protect themselves, they seek even more secrecy, narrowing in the circle still further, eroding still further the quality of decision-making”.

Proposals for Improving Innovation and Technology Transfer Policies in Romania

Starting from the interdependence between innovation and technology transfer, as indicators of competitiveness at both micro and macroeconomic levels, this paper aims to highlight a number of ways of optimizing innovation and technology transfer policies in Romania in a European context, which places Romania in the category of modest innovators. The paper is based on the assumption that the need for technology transfer originates from a markets failure, i.e. a significant imbalance between supply and demand for innovation. A smooth technology transfer is likely to correct this market imbalance, while difficulties in achieving technology transfer generates lack of competitiveness, inability to generate added value, especially in the economic sector and the impossibility to achieve the innovative potential, both within SMEs (main sources of innovation in a functional market economy) and institutions which operate in research-development-innovation field.

Overview of the wind energy market and renewable energy policy in Romania

The modern, developed society becomes aware of the necessity to conserve and protect the environment, increasing the gained benefits from a rational use of the natural resources. The pollution and the limitation of the fossil fuels, associated with the political situation worldwide that affects direct the energy strategies, have opened opportunities in the area of operation renewable energy sources. The development of the exploitation of renewable energy sources is directly linked to the energy politic, which, in terms of Romania, has the focus to integrate into the European Union energy strategy. The year 2014 brought in Romania many legislative changes to the renewable support scheme, that proves, once again, the legislative unpredictability and limitations introduced by the legislator ”during the game” that overthrew all economic profitability calculation of the existent and planned investments in this sector. The actual stage of the wind energy across Europe and the particular situation in Romania are highlighted; also a 2020 forecast for Romania tries to evaluate the perspective for the wind, and general, renewable energy market. The actual Romanian renewable energy support scheme, mainly regulated by “Law 220/2008” ends December 2016. The so-called “ready to build” projects especially wind- or hydropower, can’t be finalized until this deadline, being unable to qualify to the existing, mainly to inoperable, support scheme. Another legislation that has to clarify how investments in renewable energy will be supported is still not in place, blocking any project development, implementation and economical benefit of the producer. The paper presents in this respect an updated overview of the Romanian renewable energy sector and its perspective.

“The principle is good. The way it is implemented is bad.” Challenges of the European Rural Development Policy in Romania

“The principle is good. The way it is implemented is bad.” Challenges of the European Rural Development Policy in Romania

Outrunning the Past: European Influences in Building Cultural Policies in Romania and the Role of the Romanian Cultural Institute

ABSTRACTEuropeanization challenged the post-Communist countries with a series of difficulties and opportunities regarding the process of cultural policymaking. The exchange of information took place simultaneously with the process of national policymaking, influencing it. The article tackles this two-fold process and its implications in an endeavor to embrace sociocultural diversity on the one hand, and the attempt to harmonize national systems on the other hand. Culture is deeply linked to the perception of national identity, tradition, representation, and policy. Romanian culture and cultural policies have progressed through different stages in the last few decades: from Communist censorship and the disturbing period after the Revolution, to European pre-accession and post-accession, when cultural policies aimed to comply with the European directives for culture.

CONVENTIONAL AND UNCONVENTIONAL MONETARY POLICY. THE CASE OF ROMANIA

The aim of our paper is to analyze the conventional and unconventional monetary policy in Romania, in the context of the recent financial crisis. We study the relationship between interest rates and credit risk, but also the non-standard monetary measures that were adopted by the National Bank of Romania and their impact on the banking system. Our results point to a decrease of interest rates in the years after the crisis, which is in line with the majority of central banks that have reduced monetary rates in order to sustain the economy and the credit activity.

Healthcare Policy in Romania. Frameworks and Challenges

Abstract The objective of the paper is to review some of the healthcare policy issues of Romania and identify those challenges which may be addressed through social intervention. Based on statistical data, documents, reports and applicable laws one will review the health condition of Romanian population and the state of the national health system, and will examine the broad strategies and policies currently under the scrutiny of appropriate ministries. The findings of the study suggest looking at health policies also through the lens of social inclusion.

The Role of Urban Growth Poles in Regional Policy: The Romanian Case

As part of a broader Europeanization process, the general guidelines and principles of the European spatial planning documents have been uncritically overtaken in the last two decades in the Romanian spatial planning system. One of them is represented by the growth pole concept, which was widely used not only in the selection process of the cities as growth poles but in the delimitation of the metropolitan zones as well. The Regional Operational Program (ROP) 2007-2013 has incorporated the above logic, the priority axe 1 sustaining the urban growth poles with 30% of the budget allocated to the whole ROP. The future prospects for 2014-2020 are going in the same direction.The main aim of this paper is to evaluate the process and outcome of establishing the urban growth poles as key elements of the new regional policy in Romania. In particular, we will address the process of establishing the urban growth poles as high priority development goal. The paper highlights the failure of regional policy in attaining its essential objective, the reduction of regional disparities. Driven by the growth of the capital region Bucharest-Ilfov, regional polarisation is at a historical high, as the regional policies applied in Romania being unable to influence this process. Although we have at this time no exact evaluation on their regional impact, we can assume that the urban growth poles program has rather contributed to the intensification of regional imbalances.