Whether under the tsars of the imperial period or the despots of communism, this Eastern European giant always endured the heavy hand of a powerful and highly centralized national government.
Romania, which joined the European Union on 1 January 2007, began the transition from Communism in 1989 with a largely obsolete industrial base and a pattern of output unsuited to the country's needs.
Indeed the truly scary thing is that every single Eastern European country, even the ones that have fully integrated into the EU and NATO, was more demographically stable under communism.