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The Minister of Labor and Social Solidarity, attending on Thursday the OECD Skills Summit 2022 in Cartagena, Colombia, asked organization officials to speed up Romania's accession to the international body.
"Fruitful meeting with OECD Deputy Secretary-General Ulrik Vestergaard Knudsen and OECD Director of Employment, Labor and Social Affairs Stefano Scarpetta today at the opening of the OECD summit in Colombia. The main topic was the request to speed up Romania's OECD accession. I thank director Stefano Scarpetta for the invitation to participate as a permanent guest in the works of the OECD Employment, Labour and Social Affairs Committee. We called for openness, dialogue and counseling for speeding up Romania's accession to the OECD and Deputy Secretary-General Ulrik Vestergaard Knudsen gave us full availability assurances," the minister wrote on Facebook.
He also noted that on the same day he met with Colombia's Vice Minister of Employment and Pensions Andres Uribe, with whom he had an exchange on their common field of activity, laying the foundations for a future cooperation between the two ministries.
The OECD announced in January its decision to open negotiations for Romania's accession. At the end of January, OECD Secretary General Mathias Cormann paid a visit to Bucharest, stating on the occasion that Romania has done "very well" in the last decade, but "there are still areas where more work is needed."
Romania's accession to the OECD is a strategic foreign policy goal which has garnered cross-party support from Romania's post-December governments. Romania officially applied for OECD membership in April 2004, renewing its bid several times.
