Abstract:

The National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NRRP) is one of the main instruments through which Romania implements the objectives of the European Recovery and Resilience Facility. This study aims to extend the analysis of the NRRP from the national to the regional level by comparatively assessing the distribution of projects and financial resources across Romania's eight development regions. The study adopts a quantitative, descriptive and comparative approach, using data from the NRRP dashboard. The analysis covers 24,708 projects distributed across the eight development regions and examines the number and proportion of projects, the volume and structure of funding, the distribution of grants and loans, funding per capita, and the distribution of projects across the NRRP's components. The results reveal marked territorial differences in terms of the number of projects and the financial resources associated with them. The North-West region accounts for the largest proportion of projects (17.48%), while the Bucharest-Ilfov region accounts for only 7.90% of projects, but concentrates 55.36% of the financial resources included in the regional analysis. Funding per capita also indicates a pronounced territorial concentration in the Bucharest-Ilfov region, reaching €3,352.69 per inhabitant, compared with considerably lower values in the other regions. At the same time, grants represent the predominant form of funding across all eight regions, accounting for more than 88% of projects, while the analysis by NRRP component reveals a substantial concentration of projects in the field of education. The study concludes that the territorial distribution of NRRP financial resources is not proportional to the numerical distribution of projects, providing an empirical picture of regional disparities in the implementation of Romania's NRRP.