Sustainable Rural Development In Romania. Financing Implemented Through Common Agricultural Policy Between 2014-2020

The European agricultural sector operates under the "umbrella" of the most contested policy, but also with the largest funding under the EU budget, namely the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). Long reformed in the more than six decades of its existence, the CAP is undoubtedly, throughout its evolution, a true "mirror" of the way in which the financing policy of the European agricultural sector has changed in recent decades. As an EU Member State, Romania finances its agricultural sector and rural development policy using a wide range of instruments and funds available under the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). This article explores two of these instruments - direct payments (especially "green" direct payments - subject to stricter environmental conditionalities) and environmental measures (under the National Rural Development Plan) to highlight how the sefinancial instruments from the two pillars of the CAP can contribute substantially to the financing of sustainable rural development and sustainable agriculture in Romania. Romania's performance in the field will be analyzed in terms of comparisons with those of other Member States ("new" or "old"), using for this purpose national statistics (provided by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development), but also European Statistics (provided by DG Agriculture & Rural Development).