Romanians Keep Faith With European Dream

In spite of the economic hardship of recent years, Romanians continue to support their country's membership of the European Union, as they associate the 28-member club with the right to free movement, democracy, and human rights and peace with neighboring countries, according to a survey released on Monday.

The poll, conducted by the Romanian Institute for Evaluation and Strategies, IRES, show also that almost three-quarters of Romanians (71.4 per cent) consider themselves European citizens, up from 68.6 per cent last year.

Meanwhile, 65 per cent of the respondents think that joining the European Union has brought Romania advantages. Only 23 per cent believe the contrary and 11.4 per cent did not give an answer.

Most Romanians also agree that joining the euro zone and establishing an EU army would be good for the country.

Romania has notched up a positive balance of around 14 billion euro with the EU since it joined the European club in 2007, according to official data.

It has received some 24.6 billion euro from the EU budget between 2007-2014, and has paid back some 10.2 billion euro.

Most of the EU money it has received - 9 billion euro - was allotted for structural and cohesion funding, while around 5.9 billion euro was for agriculture and 5.6 billion was for rural development and fishery.

Another advantage of EU membership for Romania has been increased trade with the bloc. Today, 70 per cent of the country's exports go to the 28-member club.

Romania is still lagging behind other Eastern European states in terms of the rate of absorption of potential EU funds, however.

Most of the money for Romania from EU structural and cohesion funds was intended to finance the construction of highways. But, according to...