Page 156 - Proceeding 2015

FLORESCU Margareta and POTCOVARU Ana-Mădălina
FAMP
CCASP LOCAL DEVELOPMENT’S INFLUENCE ON THE FREEDOM OF THE DECISION-MAKING PROCESS
IN LOCAL COLLECTIVITIES IN ROMANIA

Cernavoda, like many cities located in Constanta county, has a long history behind, being founded either

by the ancient greeks or by the romans. Currently, Cernavoda is a small city located on the Danube river,
but unlike many other small and medium cities in the country, has a strategic location and interest, in part
PROCEEDINGS OF THE 11 TH ADMINISTRATION AND PUBLIC MANAGEMENT INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE
because of the Danube-Black Sea canal which was innaugurated in 1984, after more than 10 years of

construction and starts near Cernavoda and especially for the hosting of Romania's only nuclear power
plant, since 1996, when the first reactor started producing energy (Hour, 2015).

The whole industry is currently focused in maintaining and operating the nuclear power plant with other

industries virtually non-existent, with the exception of some companies that offer different services, this
being the only sector that flourished after 1990.

According to the municipality's plans for the town, their plan is to invest more in creating green areas in

the city, to build a new harbour for tourists that navigate along the Danube towards the Black Sea and the
Danube Delta, thus transforming Cernavoda into a more desirable tourist destination and finally to develop
30 th – 31 st October 2015 ”Strategic Management for Local Communities” Bucharest
a Center for Emergency Situations, vital for a city that hosts two nuclear reactors. As a short conclusion
to the plans that the city's management has for Cernavoda, we can conclude that only the construction of
the new river port has the potential of creating a new industry for the city and opportunities the local

businesses and people (Groove, 2015).

CONCLUSION

After reviewing some basic attributes of three large, medium and small cities from Romania, a major

conclusion can be drawn: the larger a city is, the more accurate and performant management has, even
though some of the good measure taken were somewhat forced by the private investors that came in that
certain city to open production facilities.

All the large cities analysed in this paper had a local development strategy, usually overlapping the EU
fund calendar, focusing mostly on infrastructure, environment and, maybe one of the most important factor
that only in the last few years appeared in the local strategies of several municipalities, the quality of life

improvement. The latter one might be even more important usually because in a city or local community
that is seen as having a high quality of life, many skilled people are likely to come and stay there. And

skilled labour force means more economic activity, more innovation and more added value.

From wihin the medium cities trio, Bistrita kept or attention in particular, especially for its strong industrial
basis, that managed to survive and thrive even after the fall of the communism and the EU accession.

But, generally speaking, the smaller the cities, the more disarray the strategies are, some focusing on
large infrastructure or tourism projects that might have minimal or no economic impact, with the sole

154