ROMANIA’s EXTERNAL TRADE, FROM THE GREAT UNION TO THE INTEGRATION IN EUROPEAN UNION

International trade has fundamentally changed the world we live in, over the past century, under the influence of both geo-political factors and unprecedented technological developments in transport, information and communications. Starting from this assertion, the present paper attempted to capture the essential characteristics of Romania's trade, from the Great Union, in 1918, to the integration into European Union, analyzing the historical stages, defined by the political, economic or social events that happened during these one hundred years. The first period under analyze is the interwar period, 1919-1938. The destructions that were brought by the World War I were strongly felt at the beginning of this period, so all efforts were focused on the restoration and consolidation of the economic development of the country. The gradual recovery of agricultural and industrial production has given a moderate economic development in the 1924-1928 years, abruptly disrupted by the great economic depression, a strong global crisis which affected most countries of the world, in the period 1929-1933. The Romanian economy resumed its development in 1934, especially under the influence of the revival of national industry, strongly supported by state reforms and trade policy, until 1938, when economic growth per capita reached the highest level that has ever been recorded until then. The outburst of the World War II in 1939 has stopped the economic upturn of Romania, both industry and agriculture being affected by the lack of imported raw materials and available labor force. The post-war period also contains several milestones, of which the most important, from our analysis point of view, are the consolidation of communist power (1945-1964) and the socialist period (1965-1989). After 1990, Romania's economy evolved under the impact of some factors as: the trade liberalization, the transition to the market economy and the steps taken towards obtaining the status of EU member state (in effect since 1st of January 2007). Currently, Romania is in the post-accession stage and on the way to its integration into the EU, trying, through economic and social policies, to provide the premises for healthy economic growth, development and modernization, in order to reduce the existing gaps as against the more developed EU Member States.