Abstract:

Our paper proposes to emphasize the situation of rural development in Romania, highlighting the main opportunities and challenges brought on by the country’s accession into European Union, by taking into consideration the results of ten foresight exercises that either focus on or are to some extent interested in rural areas and regional development. The analysis will underline the key factors of Romanian rural development gap comparative with other European countries. In the final section of our paper we will focus on possible policy options for increasing the sustainability of Romania’s rural development (by identifying major SWOTs)  in the context of new European vision for rural development that has two objectives: rural socio-economic development and environmental protection.