Coordinates of the budgets of revenues and expenditures of the rural localities

Abstract

The study has two main objectives: exploring the budget coordinates of Romanian communes with the purpose of first, identifying regional differences and second, analyzing the projects selected for European financing through measure 322 of the National Program for Rural Development. The study uses 2010 data on the budget of revenues and expenditure of the rural localities (supplied by the Directorate for Local Fiscal and Budgetary Policies within the Ministry of Administration and of the Interior), as well as data on the projects selected for European financing through measure 322 of PNDR (“Renovation and development of villages, improving the basic services for the rural economy and population and valorization of the rural legacy), provided by the Agency for Payments for Rural Development and Fisheries. The underlying data for these analyses reveal significant gaps between the possibilities of financing development using the budget revenues of rural localities both at the regional and intra-county level. These gaps contribute to higher inequalities between areas with intense economic activity and poor areas, preventing a balanced development of the rural areas. Polar typologies can be thus noticed: the communes close to urban centers from the developed regions that can provide, largely from their own funds, the expenditures for the development of the public infrastructure, and the poor communes where the financing of the projects of local development depends on the allocations from the central budget and on the success of accessing European funds.