Local Action Groups- a possible solution to the rural problem of Romania

Romania has the highest share of EU rural areas (44.9 % in 2009), which generates and maintains a long series of regional disparities. Because of these disparities, the economy faces a number of elements that undermine the quality of human and social capital and reduces the potential for growth: precarious social and economic infrastructure, reduced access to markets and thus to goods, a low level of both economic cohesion and living standards, and a difficult access to education and training (leading to the underutilization of labour in rural areas, while major shortages in the labour market and increased migration phenomenon manifests). During the communist era, a forcefully reduction of the rural share was undertaken through various means, most often destructive (the land systematization program during Ceaușescu period). Even the transition to a market economy has failed to improve the situation because, in recent years, the urban-rural migration flows have surpassed the rural-urban flows making the too large rural share problem to block the structural changes needed on one hand to modernize the economy, and on the other hand for the European integration. Moreover, the gross domestic product structure is much different from that of European Union developed countries, Romania still having a high share of agriculture and even industry, and a share of services significantl