Romania has closed 15 of the 25 committees in its accession process to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), and if everything goes according to plan, we will join this organisation next year, Secretary of State with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Luca Niculescu told the Rethink Romania 2025 Summit - Infrastructure of Trust, on Friday.
'We are eight countries currently in the accession process, and Romania is in the leading pack. Our country, as it is and as we know it, has managed to mobilise and is mobilising for this very large effort, which resembles the accession to the European Union quite a lot; only that then we had chapters to close, here we have committees to conclude. Twenty-five committees evaluating Romania, covering practically all areas of public life, be it digitalisation, environment, agriculture, health, public governance, corporate governance. Practically there is no area of our life that does not find a counterpart at the OECD,' Niculescu pointed out.
He brought to mind that institutions have been working for almost three years and that roughly one third of the instruments that Romania must conclude with the OECD relate to environmental protection.
'I ask you to keep your fingers crossed at the beginning of October because they will have the evaluation, they have been working for years on it and I hope with all my heart that they will close it. We are at an advanced point. Out of the 25 committees, we have closed 15. There are still ten more, where again we are very far along. We have most of the evaluations this autumn and some at the start of next year, and if everything goes according to plan, next year we will accede to the OECD, and it would be exactly as we proposed, in 2026,' he underlined.
The official voiced himself optimistic about the OECD accession, saying that the political decision-makers set 2026 as accession time frame, to present Romania as a country that works, oriented towards the future, ready to join the club of the most developed standards in terms of public governance, the club of developed economies.
He also said he is often asked what the benefit of joining the OECD is, explaining that it is primarily reputational because a country that is in the OECD automatically attracts more high-quality investment.
Moreover, he said that by joining the OECD Romania will have access to the expertise of the world's most developed economies.
'There are over 300 committees and working groups at the OECD, in which Romanian experts will be able to collaborate, learn, bring their lessons, because there are areas in which Romania already performs and from which other OECD peers can learn. There is also another important benefit, access to the best global database and studies, because the OECD's motto is Better Policies for Better Lives,' it offers policies based on data, figures, statistics, not on momentary impressions or on the electoral cycle of any political party. So, policies grounded in data. And I will give another example. The OECD is a place where many policy ideas are conceived which at some point turn into legislation, whether European legislation as far as we are concerned, or other normative acts in other states. It is very important to be at the start of the decision-making process, meaning where the idea is born, because in that way you can contribute your input, you can see the advantages and disadvantages of implementing an idea and you are there before that idea transforms into a directive or into a draft legislation,' Luca Niculescu said.
In addition, he noted a symbolic advantage: the OECD being an organisation born out of the Marshall Plan in 1947.
'The ancestor of the OECD, the OEEC (Organisation for European Economic Co-operation), was the one that implemented the Marshall Plan in Europe. We know very well that in 1947-48 we barely had Marshall Plan or thought of it, but Moscow decided otherwise. Now we have the chance to join the OECD,' Luca Niculescu added.
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