The paper analyze one of the most important themes brought to the attention of the public opinion in Romania of the recent years, the regionalization reform. Regionalization is a very complex concept that determined a variety of regional realities in Europe, most of them influenced by previous historical evolutions. That is the reason why, first, it is emphasized the main theoretical aspects of the concept trying to eliminate some common confusions. Then, using a comparative approach, the paper focuses on the on the regional reality from other European countries (like France, Italy or Spain, that are similar with our administrative system). It is also discussed the impact on local communities, but also on economic performance of the regions in the studied countries.The paper also analyze the process of regionalization on three levels: first, it deals with what kind of regions should be introduced in Romania, taking into account previous attempts for regional reforms made in inter-war and communist period. Secondly, the article analyze the way how regions will affect the sustainable development in our country, especially if the development gaps between regions at this moment will be reduced or they will grow. This is a very important issue related to the support of the population on such reforms: in general, citizens grant and withhold trust based on their evaluation of the performance of the actors and institutions, both at central and local levels. Sociological studies shows that the level of trust is higher related to local authorities. This is an opportunity for regionalization and transfers of competencies at the local level as a tool for more responsive, performant and transparent decision-making process. But the unanswered question is that if they will become that way, our opinion being that it is not enough to change the legal framework.

Since the fall of the Ceausescu regime, Romanian politics have been haunted by unresolved issues of the past. Irina Livezeanu examines a critical chapter in Eastern European history—the trajectory of the aggressive nationalism that dominated Romania between the world wars.

The nation states in the Black Sea area have initiated many co-operative policies but the area also sees numerous tensions between neighboring states. The conflict-co-operation paradox, along with ethnic fragmentation and shared culture, are two of the most salient features of the Black Sea Area. These paradoxes are not the only force in the evolution of the region though. There are also issues such as ethnic and national identity, the failure of democratization, energy and resources, as well as the influence of other powers such as Russia, the EU and the USA. The key questions asked by the authors in this book are: to what extent is there an emerging regionalism in the Black Sea area? Is the Black Sea a region? What are the common interests shared by the former USSR states, the three EU member states neighboring the Black Sea - Bulgaria, Greece and Romania, and a NATO country - Turkey? Are the fault-lines dividing them more pervasive than the incentives for cooperation? Can we speak of a shared identity? The first part of the book places the Black Sea problematique in a wider historical and spatial context. The authors then take a closer look at the region and examine further the structure of the Black Sea area. They offer a perspective on smaller actors with great ambitions, such as Azerbaijan and Romania, and go on to make a comparison between the emerging regionalism in the Black Sea area and regionalisms in other parts of the world.

The present article tackles a very actual and heavily debated topic in our country, that of the regionalization. Our aim is to present how the memory of belonging to a historical region, the ethnical criteria, the local/regional identity and pride influence the outlining of the regionalization projects from the North-West Region of Transylvania. As a case study we have chosen to unfold the regionalization initiatives which target the North-West Region due to its unique character, being an administrative unit, which during history formed part of a multiethnic province with many autonomous regions. In order to better understand the current decentralization projects of various political parties we have considered also necessary to present the historical regions, ethnical- and administrative territorial configuration of Transylvania throughout the centuries. We wish to prove that despite the devices used in the regionalization process, stating that its role is purely economic reality shows that neither the ethnical nor the historical criteria can be neglected in case of Transylvania, an extremely heterogonous region with strong regional identities.

This paper aims to capture some aspects of regional development in Romania analyzing as a case study the North-Western Region. Thus, as a result of the conducted research, it was observed that, in Romania, regional issues have become topical after the Second World War, when the first changes in the national territory took place. However, after the Revolution from 1989 the national authorities faced a visible increase in the development gap between regions, which led to a necessary development of the regional policy, whose principles and objectives to meet the European directives of the regional development. Using a series of regional macroeconomic indicators (such as GDP/capita, the civilian active population, the length of the public roads) it was conducted a thorough analysis of this area's development in recent years. In the last part of the research, it was intended to achieve a development model based on Pearson's correlation coefficient. Unfortunately, the performed calculations and the results interpretation didn't make possible to build the desired model, but there were attempts to identify the causes that led to this result.