The role of national minorities in Hungarian-Romanian cross-border economic cooperation in county development documents for the period 2007-2020

One of the main pillars of the European Union is the cohesion policy, which aims to enable the different regions of the Member States to converge in their development regardless of their geographical location and historical trajectory, thereby creating a true common market. Cross-border programs that have been running for more than thirty years play a prominent role in this objective. However, in order for these programs to be truly successful, it is necessary to create strategies at the local level of regional development. Therefore, the present research processes the development documents of the Romanian-Hungarian border counties between 2007 and 2020 in order to get a more accurate picture of the role of the Romanian community living in Hungary, as well as the Hungarian community living in Romania, in cross-border economic cooperation. The present research is part of a more comprehensive investigation, in which we explore in more detail the role of national minorities in economic cooperation across the Hungarian-Romanian border.