Abstract: This paper examines the impact of varying the significance of socio-economic and security indicators on the satisfaction levels of citizens across different counties in Romania and Republic of Moldova. Using grey clustering analysis, a powerful tool offered by the grey systems theory, the counties are grouped into three clusters based on citizen satisfaction. Five different scenarios are explored, each assigning distinct weights to socio-economic and security indexes to evaluate their influence on the clustering outcomes. The findings indicate that increasing the emphasis on socio-economic factors leads to more counties experiencing higher levels of citizen satisfaction, particularly in Romania, where socio-economic stability is more robust. On the other hand, placing greater importance on security factors exposes governance-related challenges, as a clear division between the counties in Romania and Republic of Moldova can be observed. While when considering the security indexes, more counties are pushed in the higher levels of satisfaction clusters for the counties in Republic of Moldova, an opposite trend can be encountered for the counties in Romania. 

Key words: Regional disparities, Grey clustering, Grey systems theory, Placed-based economy, EU periphery, Romania, Republic of Moldova, Regional clusters