Increases in productivity and competitiveness of an economy are based mostly on the actions of companies in terms of providing technical capital to workers and of operations efficiency (management, financial, recruitment, finding markets and suppliers, internal and external communication, etc.) through digitalization. This paper deals with the way in which the economies and companies in Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries manage to adapt to the trend that started, mostly after 2000, in digitalization; also, it analyzes the extent to which an increase in the degree of business upgrading via integrating digital technology into the business model leads to a surge in economic performances (productivity, exports) and, consequently, to a greater attractivity to foreign capital flows.

The process of reaching carbon neutrality by 2050 and cutting CO2 emissions by 2030 by 55% compared to 1990 as per the EU Green Deal is highly complex. The energy mix must be changed to ensure long-term environmental sustainability, mainly by closing down coal sites, while preserving the energy-intensive short-term economic growth, ensuring social equity, and opening opportunities for regions diminishing in population and potential. Romania is currently in the position of deciding the optimal way forward in this challenging societal shift while morphing to evidence-based policy-making and anticipatory governance, mainly in its two coal-mining regions. This article provides possible future scenarios for tackling this complex issue in Romania through a three-pronged, staggered, methodology: (1) clustering Romania with other similar countries from the point of view of the Just Transition efforts (i.e., the energy mix and the socio-economic parameters), (2) analyzing Romania’s potential evolution of the energy mix from the point of the thermal efficiency of two major power plants (CEH and CEO) and the systemic energy losses, and (3) providing insights on the socio-economic context (economic development and labor market transformations, including the component on the effects on vulnerable consumers) of the central coal regions in Romania.

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The insurances for unemployment have an important role in the functioning of labour market and in shocks adjustment. In this article we present a proposal regarding the unemployment insurance scheme in euro area (functionality, eligibility, necessary budget), starting with the relationship between the natural unemployment rate and the effective unemployment rate, on the one hand, and the net replacement rate, on the other hand. In the last section of the article we estimated the reaction of the output gap to the change of unemployment benefits in the countries eligible for European Insurance Scheme using a panel data econometric model with fixed effects. The model was computed for a mixed open economy. Thus, we included as exogenous variables the unemployment rate, the unemployment cash benefits, exports and the gross formation of fixed capital of governmental sector.

This paper’s aim is to analyze the challenges that may arise to the harmonious and inclusive economic development of EU member states from Central and Eastern Europe in the larger context of the European Common Market and the free movement of capital. The theoretical framework on which this paper is based is represented by the thesis of “structural dependence on international capital” and “race to the bottom” competition to attract foreign investment and increase the convergence speed in the catching-up process. We have also tackled the consequences arising from the social cohesion perspective, pointing out that a country cannot have at the same time (1) a high degree of social equity; (2) free movement of capital, amid structural consequences that manifest themselves as a result of this freedom; and, (3) a robust position of foreign companies as a share of value added.