Romania is not well integrated into the digital world, according to the European Commission’s Digital Economy and Society Index

With a score of 30.6 points, Romania lags behind all other EU Member States, according to the European Commission’s Digital Economy and Society Index (DESI) 2022, which tracks digital progress in the European Union. The EU average is 52.3 points.

According to the EC’s press release, during the COVID-19 pandemic, Member States made progress in their digitization efforts, but have not yet managed to close gaps in the areas of digital skills, digital transformation of SMEs (small and medium enterprises), deployment of advanced 5G connectivity structures and AI (artificial intelligence) development.

Even still, taking all aspects into consideration, Romania’s relative annual growth is behind that of its peers, indicating that it is not converging with the rest of the Member States.

And while the country maintains its high rankings in the proportion of employed female ICT specialists (ranking 2nd), ICT graduates (ranking 4th), and connectivity (which surpasses the EU average), it is lagging behind in several other areas, such as a very low level of basic digital skills in the general population and a low level of digitalization when it comes to public services and businesses, especially SMEs.

Romania scores well below the EU average concerning at least basic digital skills (28% vs 54%) and above basic digital skills (9% vs 26%).

Romania also scores poorly in the integration of digital technologies, ranking last, as nearly all indicators remain considerably below the EU average and have either stagnated or even decreased in the past year. For example, the share of SMEs with at least a basic level of digital presence was 22% compared to the EU average of 55%.

Additionally, digital public services continue to be a challenge for Romania. The country performs significantly below the EU average as the availability of digital public services for citizens is quite low (a score of 44, compared to the EU average of 75) and only 17% of internet users are using e-government services.

There is therefore a serious need for "a significant change of pace" if the country is to reach the EU’s Digital Decade goals for 2030.

The Romanian Recovery and Resilience Plan aims to contribute to this necessary development: "With investment support of almost EUR 6 billion, the Romanian Recovery and Resilience Plan (RRP) includes highly significant measures to fully embrace digitalization, along all DESI dimensions, i.e. digital skills, connectivity, support of businesses, and digital public services," says the document.