CONSIDERATIONS REGARDING THE CAPACITY OF ABSORPTION FOR EU FUNDING AT THE LEVEL OF ROMANIA WITHIN THE PERIOD 2007-2013

This paper focuses on the issues of the capacity of absorption of European Union's funding at the level of Romania in the period 2007-2013. In order to realize proper assumptions, the current study realizes a short overview, of the social and economic issues which caused incidents in the accession, contracting and the implementation phases of European Funds. In the second part of the paper the authors will analyse the way these issues are reflected at the level of European Commission, especially those regarding the cohesion policy. In Romania, in the period 2007-2013, one the main financial instrument of the European Union was the European Regional Development Fund through its sub-programme: Regional Operational Programme. This programme will be defined and will be thoroughly analysed on its entire set of axis. As a case study the study went forward and analyses the implementation of this programme in the selected target region using data and reports from March 2014. It was assessed, at county level, if access to European funding has a potential to reduce economic disparities or just "rich counties got richer". Since the process of contracting European Funds is at the end for the period 2007-2013 several recommendations to increase absorption capacity were made at the end of this document.