ROMANIA IN THE EU SINGLE MARKET – AN ANALYSIS OF THE POST-ACCESSION AGRIFOOD TRADE PERFORMANCES

Abstract

The requirements of the Single Market imposed in the post-accession period important changes and improvements in the Romanian domestic agrifood production and processing. For the last two decades, Romania was unable to achieve self-sufficiency for most agrifood products, thus needing continuous and increasing imports, larger than exports, resulting in an increasing trade deficit. The economic crisis reversed the upward trend in imports, the exports intensified, and the result was the reversal of the agrifood trade balance trend. Consequently, in 2007-2012, the deficit diminished three times, and since 2013, Romania became again a net agrifood exporter, after 25 years. The present paper is analyzing the changes in the trade performances with its main partners in the EU in the post-accession period.