Using Structural Funds in Romania

The purpose of this thesis is to investigate how the Cohesion Policy of the EU is dealt with beyond policies and politics in one of its Member States, i.e. Romania. In this framework issues are raised such as how the Operational Programmes and their financial allocations are designated, what implementation problems have been encountered by the Romanian Authorities and which is the present outlook of the Programmes. Financial allocations are done accordingly to the priorities set by the National Development Plan, adapted in the National Strategic Reference Framework and all the Programmes and allocations are set at national level, thus not correlating the policies to the development needs at regional level. The legacy left by the communist centralized system is still present in how the administration functions but also the fear of fraud has lead in some cases to excessive bureaucracy burdening the management of the Funds and so creating delays and dissatisfaction among the beneficiaries or possible beneficiaries.