Does Romania Meet the Targets for Recovery and Resilience?

The Recovery and Resilience Mechanism represents the European Union's response to the devastating effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, designed to help EU’s members built more resilient and sustainable societies capable of transitioning to digitalization and a green economy. This initiative consists of six pillars that were analyzed in the current study through six indicators associated with the Sustainable Development Goals. The examined indicators cover green transition pillar, specifically looking at artificial forest regeneration; digital transformation with a focus on IT equipment in schools; health and economic and social resilience pillar measured by the number of doctors per 10,000 inhabitants; inclusive growth — presented as the average pension levels in Romania; social and territorial cohesion measured by the share of agrotourism accommodations in the total of guesthouses in in each county and education through the number of professional units in total school units. The results section presents the county-level situation of the six variables highlighted by six detailed visual maps. A second analysis was conducted for NUTS2 regions which also resulted in six overview maps. To assess regional resilience, the authors conducted a TOPSIS analysis to rank these regions based on how well they meet the Sustainable Development Goals. The findings of the current study reveal a pattern observed over time in many researches - southern regions consistently show lower performance compared to their northern counterparts across most indicators.