Romania received approximately 108.3 billion euro in non-reimbursable European funds between 2007 and 2025 and contributed approximately 35.9 billion euro to the European Union budget, recording a positive balance of over 72 billion euro, according to an analysis by Banca Transilvania (BT).
“One of the best personal decisions was to trust Romania. It is the country where I have lived and worked for these 20 years and, looking back, I believe that Romania has offered extraordinary opportunities to those who have had the patience, trust and courage to invest in the long term. The growth has not been linear, but it has been constant and the direction has been clear. For the coming years, my bet remains Romania, but one that can play in a bigger economic league: a more sophisticated economy, with more local capital, with entrepreneurs building regional companies and with banks capable of supporting this ambition. Of course, we still have a lot to do, but if we look at where we started and where we are today, we have reason to trust in what we can build further,” said Omer Tetik, CEO of Banca Transilvania, quoted in the press release.
According to the analysis, one of the most visible effects of Romania’s membership in the European Union is access to European funds.
Thus, for every euro that Romania contributed to the European Union budget, it received approximately three euros in the form of non-reimbursable European funds. These resources supported investments in infrastructure, agriculture, companies and communities and contributed to the modernization of Romania.
Regarding economic convergence, the data presented by Banca Transilvania show that Romania’s GDP per capita, adjusted for purchasing power, increased from approximately 44% of the European Union average, at the time of accession, to 78% in 2025.
In almost two decades, Romania has thus recovered over 30 percentage points of the gap with the European average. However, the pace of development has not been uniform, neither between periods nor between regions, and the gaps persist.
According to the cited source, the transformation of the economy was supported by entrepreneurs who invested, by companies that developed services and created jobs, by people who acquired new skills or learned other trades, as well as by communities that capitalized on the opportunities offered by the European Union.
EU membership provided the framework in which many of these transformations accelerated, through access to a market of hundreds of millions of consumers, common rules, capital and financing for investments, but also through increased predictability and confidence in long-term investments in Romania.
Another important effect of European integration is the access of Romanian companies to the single market, which facilitated their entry into European production and supply chains, access to external customers and the transfer of technology and know-how.
According to the analysis, in 2025, Romania exported goods worth approximately 96.6 billion euros, and over 71% of exports were to European Union member states. Thus, over seven out of every ten euros generated by Romanian exports of goods are related to the EU market.