While Budapest and Warsaw are haggling with the bloc over rule-of-law strings attached to billions worth of pandemic recovery funds, Romania has already drawn down over 6 billion euros in grants and cheap loans.
Prime Minister Nicolae Ciuca has said the government aims to tap more than 10 billion euros a year, equivalent to about 4% of GDP, of about 90 billion euros of EU funding available to Bucharest through to 2027.
RESHORINGCompanies reshoring from Russia and Ukraine to nearby low-cost manufacturing hubs partially helped push foreign direct investment to 9.39 billion euros in January-October, the largest 10-month figure since Romania joined the EU.
"We are optimistic that investment will rise in coming years, also encouraged by EU funds," said Alex Milcev, head of Tax and Legal at E&Y Romania.
And relations with the EU are not always smooth: in December, Austrian opposition over unauthorised immigration kept Romania out of Europe's borderless Schengen area.