Romania's economic story is one of the strongest in post-communist Europe: fast-rising incomes, real convergence with the EU average and, recently, a steep fall in measured inequality. The downside: poverty remains among the highest in the Union, and the budget deficit has slipped out of control.
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Romania's deepest change is not economic but demographic: the country has lost several million inhabitants since 1990, through emigration and through more deaths than births, and the remaining population is ageing fast.
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Romanians live much longer than in 1990 and considerably less than the European average. The long-run gains are real; so are record levels of avoidable mortality, still the EU's highest tuberculosis burden, and falling vaccination coverage.
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The domain where Romania most visibly stagnates: PISA results nearly unchanged for two decades, the EU's lowest share of young graduates, and among the Union's lowest public funding for education.
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Perceived corruption has improved since the 2000s, but progress froze a decade ago: Romania's scores stagnate at the bottom of the EU, and Romanians' confidence in judicial independence stays below the European average.
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Romanian democracy consolidated through the 2000s, but the last decade shows a slow slide: independent scores edge down, turnout has fallen from nearly 80% in 1990 to lows below one third, and the annulment of the 2024 presidential election was the severest institutional test since the Revolution.
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Per-capita emissions are among the EU's lowest, largely a legacy of deindustrialisation. But city air kills prematurely, only a fraction of waste gets recycled, and on forests even the official sources disagree.
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The domain of contrasts: some of Europe's best internet and the EU's most dangerous roads; motorways finally being built and a state still last in the Union at digital public services.
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