Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu attended the Conference ‘Romania and the OECD – The Country’s Main Project after NATO, the EU, and Schengen”
Speech by Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu at the Conference ‘Romania and the OECD – The Country’s Main Project after NATO, the EU, and Schengen”
Marcel Ciolacu: Interim President of Romania,
Ministers,
National Coordinator,
Your Excellencies, members of the Diplomatic Corps,
Dear guests,
Thank you for the invitation and for your initiative in organizing this conference. This is a crucial discussion about our country’s future and stability, taking place at a highly opportune moment.
Immediately after I took office for my first tenure as prime minister, I announced that joining the OECD is the most important strategic goal for Romania’s development and modernization. That is why I believe we must seize every opportunity, such as today’s, to explain to Romanians why this should be a national effort. OECD membership means higher investments, a better country rating, a fairer competition framework for companies, and a tax system in which resources will be used more efficiently.
In short, it means a more effective public administration. It means improving the life of every Romanian through modern social services with new quality standards. Let me offer a concrete example from the field of education.
The adoption of an OECD recommendation has led to a significant initiative to evaluate and strengthen Romania’s education system. As a result, the Ministry of Education and Research has begun implementing a modern solution: teachers in Romania will now be evaluated annually on an online platform that includes performance analyses from students and feedback from colleagues and school principals, all digitally managed. These evaluations will directly influence teachers’ salaries.
The goal is to correlate teachers’ pay with educational performance—an expectation shared widely across society. This is just one example among the many concrete progresses made over the past year and a half, during which we have managed to obtain 12 formal opinions from the OECD committees evaluating us—almost half of the total required. We must maintain the same sustained pace throughout this year to secure the remaining opinions. This is like a marathon, where endurance is key.
The truth is that OECD accession, managed simultaneously with the completion of the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR), represents the most difficult, complex, and sophisticated administrative exam Romania has faced since its European integration. We have had to learn to work effectively in large teams and in an interministerial format across the 26 areas where we are thoroughly evaluated to meet the targeted standards.
However, when we assess the efforts versus the benefits, there are huge advantages. According to forecasts from the National Bank of Romania and the private sector, joining this select club will open enormous opportunities for Romania’s economy. To draw a parallel, we only need to look at the impact EU accession had on our country’s development.
In the year 2000, Romania’s GDP per capita at purchasing power parity was about 25% of the EU average. Today, this figure is approaching 80%. This means that, on average, Romania has closed the gap by more than two percentage points per year. A key factor in this convergence has been labor productivity growth—the fastest in Central and Eastern Europe! This growth has been strongly sustained by a solid and consistent increase in foreign direct investment, driven by EU membership.
Today, we have a country project: OECD accession. This is Romania’s clearest message that it desires to join the ranks of developed nations. The economic impact of this achievement is enormous: the moment we enter the OECD, in the first fiscal year, Romania’s GDP could increase by almost 7 percentage points. This would mean that by 2030, we have a good chance of reaching the European average for a very relevant indicator, GDP per capita in purchasing power parity terms. This will bring Romania access to financing and capital at much cheaper rates, plus a massive boost in investment destination rankings. Moreover, we will have a seat at the table where major fiscal and economic policies with global impact are decided.
Romania’s Euro-Atlantic integration—joining NATO and the European Union—opened a historic opportunity for our nation. Accession to the OECD, coupled with full integration into the Schengen Area and the completion of the PNRR, represents a defining moment for modern Romania’s development. However, this requires us to complete substantial reforms, fully absorb available EU funds, and accelerate economic convergence processes.
We have a history of making major progress when the entire society rallies behind a national ideal. When the political class, alongside the private sector and professionals from civil society, manages to define a strategic goal at the political, social, and economic levels—and then ensures its implementation through effective and sustained public pressure on all key institutions involved.
I believe that joining the OECD is such a crucial moment for Romania’s future. It is a historic opportunity to regain our social cohesion and national solidarity and fulfill an ambitious destiny that Romania fully deserves: that of becoming a European economic power. In today’s world, only a country with a strong economy can hope to have a meaningful voice on the international stage.
Thank you.
Wednesday, 02 April 2025 source gov.ro
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