SUMMARY
The regional process that is taking place in Europe in recent decades, was determined by the awareness of the important role that regional policies hold in the balanced development of territories, the goal being the revival of economic and social development, locally, the economic recovery of more underdeveloped areas, to reduce the differences existing among the levels of development of regions. The action is aimed at increasing the efficiency of public authorities (central, local) in the use of resources they dispose of, in the development of some economic and financial policies aimed at encouraging investments, employment increase, living conditions improvement, taking into account the determinants of balancing regional development (resources, the development of technological processes and knowledge, political and institutional framework). The paper briefly presents the concepts of regionalism, regionalisation, whose common denominator is decentralization, that involves a multilevel governance, as well as the importance which the new model of economic and social development, consisting in the transfer of some prerogatives of the central administrative systems towards local communities, hold in solving problems that occur in regional, local plan.