DOI: 10.7910/dvn/56offb
title: EU FAR - EU Funds by Area Results Database - EU Funds absorbed by Romanian Municipalities 2016-2023

description: The cumulative EU funds for the period of 2014-2020 represent financial data from the local budgets execution, as published by the Ministry of Development, Public Works and Administration, Directorate for Local Fiscal and Budgetary Policies.[1] The data management process included merging all the information for all the localities in Romania by assigning correct unique identification codes (LAU codes)[2] for all municipalities, for all the examined years. The category of EU funds from the programming period of 2014-2020 is registered as a distinct category in the local budgets’ execution starting from 2016. The implementation of EU-funded projects from this period registered a delay associated with the approval of new operational programs, management authorities, etc. The budgetary classification used for this category by the Ministry of Public Finance (MPF) includes EU funds from all funding sources, including those from the European Regional Development Fund, European Social Fund, Common Agricultural Policy, and other external funds, such as the Norwegian financial mechanism. Notably, all the information in the database presents payments (executed budget) and not allocations.
The data published by the Ministry of Development, Public Works and Administration are reported in lei (national currency). The process of data management converted the sums for each year in euro, based on the Euro/ECU exchange rates - annual data.[3] Afterwards, the sums in euro have been converted in euro at constant 2010 prices, based on the price index, implicit deflator.[4]
The next step included computing the constant euro per inhabitant for each year. The population information comes from the National Institute of Statistics.[5] For the year of 2022, the information on population comes from the Population Census of 2021. For the year of 2023, final results of the Population Census of 2021 have been used. As a final step, all the data in euro at constant 2010 prices per inhabitant have been summed up to have a total sum of all EU funds absorbed by each municipality in Romania for the programming period of 2014-2020.[6] The database presents the computed sums, but also data in euro (at 2010 constant prices) to enable, for different research purposes, to use the information expressed only in volumes of euro, without ratio per inhabitant.
For comparative purposes, the variable on total sum of EU funds, expressed as euro, in constant prices per inhabitant, is indicated to be used. However, if interested only in the total volume of EU funds absorbed by each municipality, by year or as a total sum, the rest of the variables can be used. Adding on, affiliation of each locality to NUTS 3 and NUTS 2 levels can also be used to generate relevant statistics for these two levels – counties and development regions in Romania.
A special mention should be paid to the budgetary year of 2020, where the budgetary executions published by MDLPA, for Timiș County changed in the year 2023.[7] For this year, the sums in constant euro and per inhabitant considered the value of deflator as published by Eurostat, version from December 19, 2024. The sums are therefore slightly different from previous versions of EU FAR database.
All files associated with this database that use the .json or .md extensions can be opened with any basic text editor, such as Notepad on Windows or TextEdit on macOS. For improved readability, syntax highlighting, and better previews, it is recommended to use a specialized editor such as Notepad++.

[1] http://www.dpfbl.mdrap.ro/sit_ven_si_chelt_uat.html 
[2] From 2017 only LAU (see https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/nuts/local-administrative-units).
[3] Eurostat indicator [ERT_BIL_EUR_A]. This means that each sum in lei has been divided to the annual value corresponding to Romanian leu from the corresponding Eurostat indicator – average value.
[4] Eurostat indicator [NAMA_10_GDP], Price index (implicit deflator), 2010=100, euro, for updating the database for 2023 data has been extracted on December 19, 2024. Data for computing first version of the EU FAR database has been extracted on September 29th, 2022 and the values used for computing the sums correspond to the dates of extraction. This means that each sum converted in euro has been multiplied with 100 and then divided to the annual value from the corresponding Eurostat indicator. Updates have been performed for the budgetary year of 2020 based on this latest value of the deflator, as explained below. For the same year, data on the population of the districts of Bucharest has been processed from the Regional Statistical Directorate of Bucharest - https://bucuresti.insse.ro/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/POPULATIA-DUPA-DOMICILIU-LA-1-IANUARIE_2020.pdf.
[5] National Institute of Statistics, Tempo online database – Pop107D, Permanent resident population of Romania on 1st of January 2025. This means that each sum converted above in constant euro has been divided by number of inhabitants.
[6] Variables name in the database: [SUM_EU_2016_2021_inhab], [SUM_EU_2016_2022_inhab].
[7] The status of revenues and expenditures for the year of 2020, The status of revenues and expenditures for the years of 2019-2022, data under worksheet 37 (modified in 2023), Ministry of Development, Public Works and Administration, http://www.dpfbl.mdrap.ro/sit_ven_si_chelt_uat.html, date of access: December 29, 2024.