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Competitiveness, resilience, and convergence were topics that for decades were listed among the hot issues that have animated the scientific and political debates in the area of economic growth and economic development. For the new member states (NMS) of the European Union, which have accessed the Union since 2004, competitiveness and cohesion became from the first days of their EU membership key topics on their national policy agendas, both as directives of the EU policies to be transposed and implemented nationally and as genuine domestic concerns to be addressed by each of the NMS, while resilience revealed its importance a little bit later, on the occasion of the global economic crisis of 2008-2010 and subsequent recession. Considering their importance for the current and future socioeconomic development of the new member states, the authors present and briefly analyze the topics of competitiveness, resilience, and cohesion in a joint framework, at regional level, based on their common roots within the economic growth and development theories, with the help of a minimal, but powerful, set of relevant indicators, over three significant recent periods: ante-crisis, crisis, and post-crisis. The findings point toward both different and similar competitiveness, resilience, and convergence developments within the new member states and across countries, regions, and periods, also revealing growth and adaptation patterns similar to those found in the more developed regions and countries of the EU, especially in the wake of the global economic crisis.

Development and innovation in the digital technologies impact the whole society, communications, finances, trade, education and health services, business patterns and the entire value-added channel. The increase in the speed of digitization and its expansion within businesses leads to significant changes, both regarding the human capital and the way work and place of work are organized, with high impacts on skills, labor standards, human welfare and sustainable development of countries. Digitization involves changes not only in the human capital, but in the organizational one as well, so that for each euro invested in physical capital (hardware) some additional 10 euros have to be invested in intangible activities, especially in the human and organizational capital (Brynjolfsson and McAfee, 2014). The paper aims to analyse the impacts of digitization on human capital in the EU economies, also considering the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic that has speeded up the digitization process in the EU countries. Both the useful aspects and the challenges determined by the new requirements regarding the skills necessary to human capital are emphasized, as well as the efforts included in the EU programs dedicated to such issues, considering that 42% of the European citizens do not possess basic digital skills and 37% of labor force does not possess adequate digital skills. Finally, some econometric aspects regarding the relationship between welfare and population’s digital skills are revealed, as well as conclusions on further research and directions for action.