Sustainable finance represents an important concern of the European Union lately, having an essential role in achieving the political objectives of the European Climate Pact. It is interpreted that it supports the sustainable development of economy, simultaneously reducing the pressures on environment and taking into consideration social and governance aspects.
The scope of sustainable finance is to improve the financial sector in the context of fighting against climate changes. Considering this purpose, the ESG factors (Environmental, Social and Governance) must be considered in the decisional process regarding the investments of the financial entities, promoting long-term investments in sustainable economic activities and projects.
There are many legislative actions at the European level, transposed into national legislation or with direct applicability in Romania for determining developing sustainable economies that beneficially impact the environment and climate changes. The action plan of the European Commission regarding developing a strategy for the sustainable finance contains ten initiatives grouped into three chapters: reorienting cash flow to a more sustainable economy, including sustainability elements in risk management, encouraging transparency and long-term vision.

Open government data (OGD) contributes to increasing the quality of public services provided by local public administration to citizens. These data create the necessary framework to be able to determine the opportunity of certain public policies or decisions for the life of the local community. The OGD is still being adopted in public sector organizations. Considering that the digitalization of the public services of a city is a topic that occupies an important place on the public agenda, this article presents a review of the literature, a proposed research model and a case study from the city of Iași, Romania. The Local Public Transport Company makes open data available to all interested parties and allows the development of solutions that support urban mobility and the quality of life of citizens.

The National Rural Development Programme (NRDP) is a programme of the European Union and the Romanian Government to provide free funds for the economic and social development of rural Romania. The purpose of this study is to highlight the situation of Romania compared to Poland, both Member States of the European Union, in terms of financial allocation of the national rural development program in the period 2014-2020. To achieve this goal, the financial statements on the allocation of NRDP for both states were analyzed, including the number of applications submitted and payments completed for the main sub-measures financed by NRDP. The NRDP has a strong impact on agricultural production in rural areas and, therefore, in addition to financing the development and modernisation of agricultural production and rural infrastructure, the European Fund has contributed to improving the quality of life of rural populations by creating new jobs. For measure 4.1, Poland implemented projects worth €2.23 billion, or 52.6% of the total allocation for the measure, and Romania implemented projects worth €0.677 billion, or 42.3% of the total allocation. In terms of the number of farms in 2016, Romania registered 3.4 million farms and a workforce of 6 million employees on farms, double the number of Poland (1.4 million farms and 3 million employees on farms).

The spread of the pandemic across international borders, along the main arteries of the world economy, benefited from both the underlying interconnectedness and fragility of globalisation, catapulting a global health crisis into a global economic shock that hit the entire world order. Thus, COVID-19 poses an enormous challenge to adaptation to adverse circumstances and development aspirations, and it is a powerful reminder of shared vulnerability that highlights the acute need for real change on a collective basis. The current pandemic-induced crisis has further accelerated the impact of the fourth industrial revolution on trade, digitalisation, competition and employment, and highlighted a significant disconnect between global economic systems and societal resilience at both national and international level. Long-term strategic options for economic recovery and for maintaining regional competitiveness are therefore needed. The paper provides the systemic support, consisting of verified data and up-to-date information, needed for realistic considerations of the behavioural impact of the pandemic from the perspective of the European Union. The future evolution of the economic outlook depends largely on both the evolution of the pandemic and the effectiveness of governments’ recovery strategies. The strategic objectives, the measures required to achieve them, the necessary resources and sources and, last but not least, the preparation for unexpected situations are all components of such a strategy. To underpin the need for synergistic action, it is therefore proposed to explore how EU countries can broaden their focus to future improvements while maintaining their regional competitiveness. Consequently, analysis of possible post-pandemic scenarios at EU level is considered to maintain regional competitiveness. This involves assessing countries’ readiness for future transformation, while carefully considering the priorities of economies that could help anchor a transformation that would foster better outcomes for productivity and shared prosperity. The devastating situation caused by the pandemic requires successful policies that allow labour and innovation to turn to new purposes in order to build a stronger and more consolidated social and economic environment. Reconstruction efforts must include various practises that advance long-term security goals by accelerating peace efforts and capital investments, as well as practices that promote good governance, strong institutions and social cohesion.

This paper aims to understand and quantify the impact of taxation on the Human Development Index. The countries considered for this research are members of the European Union and the period overviewed is 2011-2019. According to the computation of the data relevant to this research, progressively taxed countries have a higher Human Development Index than the ones that practice a flat tax system. Subsequently, the income tax as a share of GDP is also at a much higher rate in progressively taxed countries than in flat-taxed countries. Additionally, countries in the European Union that have a progressive taxed system also collect more taxes as a share of GDP than the countries that have a flat tax system. Ultimately, this paper aims to reinforce the need for the European Union’s member states that do not have a progressive taxed system to transition to one in order to have a fairer tax system that leads to a higher value of the Human Development Index and higher governmental revenues.

This research aims to examine the relationship between economic development and environmental degradation in European Union over the period 2000-2019 using a Panel ARDL/PMG model. In this respect, I have used GDP per capita expressed in PPS to catch the economic development and greenhouse gas emission per capita as a proxy for environmental degradation. The study confirms a positive impact of greenhouse gas emissions (per capita) on GDP (per capita) on short-run, but also a negative effect on long-run – the long-run effect being present in 24 EU Member States.

The increasing use of the Internet worldwide has led many institutions to consider an online presence as a necessity. The Internet has become a part of everyday life for many institutions, most of whom use it to interact and communicate with others. Public institutions have resorted to the implementation of integrated digital systems to facilitate their work and to be able to interact with the public much better through the Internet. The pandemic with the new coronavirus brought with it the digital development of public institutions, thus creating new intelligent communication systems with an automatic response. An important advantage of online communication in public institutions is that it allows access to people from various places around the world with just a few clicks of a button. No matter where we are, we can only interact with people from other parts of the globe with a simple internet connection.

At the level of the European Union, pensions from redistributive public systems are the main source of income for the elderly. A quarter of the European Union’s population is made up of retirees, and their numbers have been steadily rising in recent years. In the last decade, in Romania, the issue of sustainability of the public pension system has become more and more acute and solutions have been sought for the transfer of responsibility for the payment of pensions from the state to the individual through privately administered pensions. In the field of social policy, the constant concern has been to ensure a decent income for the elderly. The paper aims to identify the financial sustainability of private pension systems, the investment strategies used by these funds, the structure of investment portfolios, the profitability achieved by fund managers. The research method used will be statistical-mathematical. The research data are processed based on the reports and data of the Financial Supervisory Authority (ASF), the Private Pension System Supervisory Commission (CSSPP), the Romanian Association of Private Administrative Pensions (APAPR), the National Institute of Statistics (INS) and those from EUROSTAT. The results of this research consist in highlighting the problems of the current private pension management system and the economic developments of the Romanian economy in the coming decades.

The present paper analyses the impact of financial intermediation, and implications to economic growth. The main object of the paper is to prove empirically the existence of a positive association between insurance market indicators and economic development. The novelty of our study is related to the use of variables from the insurance sector, which is considered, along with the banking sector (and capital markets), as a major player involved in financial intermediation. The variables of interest used in our sample refer to the macroeconomic levels in the Member States of the European Union, and the time span being 2007-2019. For econometric analysis, we chose to use a dynamic panel data model using the generalized method of moments. Thus, we investigate how the variation of economic growth measured by the level of GDP per capita is influenced by the first lag of it, together with the insurance sector, the banking sector and the government expenditures. The variables used in our study are insurance penetration rates, measured as a percentage of gross written premiums and GDP, inflation, private consumption, balance of payments, government spending, and level of private credit (calculated as a percentage of GDP).

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a profound impact on the global economy, and the financial services sector has been no exception. The way in which consumers interact with financial institutions and products has changed significantly in the past year, and these changes are likely to continue in the post-pandemic period. In particular, the rise of digital banking and payments has accelerated dramatically, as has the move towards contactless transactions. At the same time, concerns about data security and fraud have increased, as criminals have sought to take advantage of the upheaval caused by the pandemic. As a result, the behaviour of the consumer of financial services is likely to change significantly in the post-pandemic period. Financial institutions must be prepared to adapt their products and services to meet the needs of their customers in this new environment. Research shows that the behaviour of the consumer of financial services has changed in the post-pandemic period. The increase in awareness of the importance of financial planning and saving has led to a change in spending habits. Consumers are now more likely to research comparison shop and make decisions based on value, rather than price. They are also more likely to use online resources to research and compare products and services. These changes in behaviour are likely to continue in the post-pandemic period, as consumers become more mindful of their finances.