Romania’s development level comparing with EU countries: The RGS (Relative Gap Scoring) Ranking Index

The main objective of Romania’s post-accession strategy stands for the convergence with the EU Member States. If the nominal convergence (low inflation rate, stability of the exchange and interest rates, contained public debt) seems more easily to be achieved, the real convergence is supposed to catch up structural gap, connected more or less to issues belonging to the development process approach. The study aims at comparative assessment of Romania’s development level within UE 27, proposing a composite index, called Relative Gap Scoring (RGS). This method is based on a scoring calculation depending on the quotient of each indicator level for a certain country and of the country’s ranked first for the respectively indicator, having the advantage to evidence the relative gaps and providing a synthetic image of their resultant. The RGS index has been constructed by the geometric aggregation of scoring resulted for 10 economic and social indicators, considered relevant for the prospective of real convergence. Examining Romania's position within the ranking of EU countries according to the RGS index, the study found that large gap of the current state of economic and social development of our country still remain. Nevertheless, it is worth mentioning that Romania stood at 42.5 percent of the EU average in 2007, while in relation to GDP per capita (PPS) at 40.4 percent, which reveals that, in terms of real convergence, the time horizon of catching up with EU countries could be shorter.