ROMANIA

WHERE IS ROMANIA?

BACKGROUND

There are currently 19,963,581 people living in Romania.Romanian is the official language of Romania.The capital city is Bucharest.Romania is the twelfth largest country in Europe.The Romanian leu is the currency used.

CLIMATE

• Romania’s climate can be described as continental.• In Bucharest, the temperature ranges from average low −5 °C

(23 °F) in January to average high 29 °C (84.2 °F) in July.• The average annual temperature is 11 degrees C.

PHYSICAL LANDSCAPE

• With an area of 238,391 square kilometres (92,043 sq mi), Romania is the biggest country in southeastern Europe.

• The largest mountain range in Romania are the Carpathian Mountains.

• They extend over 600 miles.• Moldoveanu Peak, at 2,544 metres, is the highest mountain in

Romania.• The Danube is the longest river in Romania. It travels about 1,075

kilometers, almost 40% of its length, through Romania.

BUCHAREST

COUNTRYSIDE

ROMANIA AND THE EU

• Romania joined the EU in 2007.• While Romania was admitted, concerns about corruption and

organised crime were still high. As a result they were subject to monitoring by the EU.

• However, during the 2000s Romania had one of the highest economic growth rates of Europe.

• When the boom collapsed Romania suffered heavily.• This led to Romania heavily borrowing, eventually becoming

the largest debtor to the International Monetary Fund in 2010.

HOW THE EU AFFECTED ROMANIA

• It was initially supposed to last for three years but has continued indefinitely and although it has highlighted the corruption and applied some pressure to continue reforms, it has not succeeded in forcing the country to complete reform and corruption persists.

RURAL POVERTY IN ROMANIA

• 44% of Romania’s population live in the countryside.• Development reports estimate that 38 % of these rural people

live in poverty.• The country’s poor people are small farmers, unemployed

rural workers and women who are heads of households. The poorest people live in remote mountainous areas, where infrastructure and social services are lacking.

RURAL POVERTY IN ROMANIA

URBAN POVERTY IN ROMANIA

• Urban women with one or two young children, and individuals with little labour market experience and secondary school education, are having the most difficult time getting employed.

ROMA GYPSIES

The Romani are Romania's most socially and economically disadvantaged minority, with high illiteracy levels. The unofficial number of Romani people in Romania is said to be as much as 850.000.The Romani people, and the Romani language, have their origin in northern India.

DECADE OF ROMA INCLUSION

• The EU launched a program entitled Decade of Roma Inclusion in 2005 to combat discrimination against the Romani people.

• The 12 countries taking part in the Decade of Roma Inclusion are Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Macedonia, Montenegro, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, and Spain.

• All of these countries have significant Romani minorities, and the Romani minority has been rather disadvantaged, both economically and socially.

DECADE OF ROMA INCLUSION

• The Roma Education Fund (REF), a central component of the initiative, was established in 2005 with the mission of expanding educational opportunities for Romani communities in Central and South-eastern Europe.

• REF's goal is to contribute to closing the gap in educational outcomes between Roma and non-Roma.

• Change in employment rates for Roma and non-Roma women, and in the ratio between them, 2004-2011:

ROMA PEOPLE