Romania continues to have one of the highest poverty rates and risk for social exclusion in the European Union. But a renewed, steady export market and an industry shift toward manufacturing, especially of electronic machinery and equipment, textiles and footwear, has helped increase the country’s wealth and middle-class. Private consumption and a rebound in investment has made the country’s economy one of the fastest-growing in the European Union.

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Romania has one of the lowest birth rates in the world, and poor national infrastructure and social programs put its aging population at risk.

After the 2016 legislative elections, the new cabinet of prime minister Sorin Grindeanu proposed a series of bills aimed at pardoning specific crimes and amending the penal code. The measures were highly criticized for incentivizing abuse of power, and the largest protests in Romania's democratic history sparked across the country and in the diaspora. More than 300,000 people took to the streets to express their disapproval and succeeded at convincing the government to withdraw their proposal. The prime minister was ousted.

A number of other protests related to a more recent fiscal reform followed after the new prime minister, Mihai Tudose, took office.

Romania joined NATO in 2004 and its bid for European Union membership was finally approved in 2007. Other international organization memberships include the United Nations, World Bank and World Trade Organization.

