Romania has closed 15 of the 25 committees in its process of accession to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OCDE) and, if everything goes according to plan, next year our country will join this organization, Luca Niculescu, state secretary within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, according to Agerpres said on Friday.
“We are 8 countries in the process of accession at the moment, and Romania is in the leading platoon. Our country has managed to mobilize and mobilize for this very big effort, which resembles quite a lot with the European Union, only that we had chapters to conclude, here we have committees to finish. Agriculture, health, public governance, corporate governance.
He has reminded that institutions have been working for almost 3 years and about one third of the tools we have to conclude at OCDE are related to environmental protection.
“Please hold their fists at the beginning of October because they will have the evaluation, they worked for years and I hope with all my heart to close it. We are at an advanced point. Of the 25 committees we closed 15. There are still 10, where we are very advanced. 2026 ”, he stressed.
The MAE official said that he is optimistic about the accession of the OECD because he must present to this organization a functioning country.
“I am condemned to be optimistic because we have proposed, the political factor has proposed the target of 2026 as an accession, and to be able to be an optimistic, I must present to the OECD a working Romania, a Romania oriented, a Romania that is ready to join the club with the most developed standards in the field of public economy, The thing I did when I returned from Paris three years ago was to get my TV out of the house, so that I would not watch the news TVs and this assures me some kind of serenity and helps me focus on what I have to do, “said Luca Niculescu.
He also said he was often asked what is the benefit of joining the OECD and explained that it is first of all a reputational one because a country that is in the OCDE automatically attracts more quality investments.
“I compared the comparison with NATO and the European Union. At NATO and the European Union it is very easy to say. NATO offers you security, the European Union prosperity. The OECD does not offer any military security, although it is sometimes said to be an economic NATO, because the economic standards it proposes are very rigorous, it does not give you direct prosperity, that is to say, it gives you the European Union. The country that is in the OCDE automatically attracts more investments and more quality investments ”, the source said.
At the same time, he said that by accession to OCDE Romania will have access to the expertise of the most developed economies in the world.
“There are over 300 committees and working groups at the OECD, in which Romanian experts will be able to collaborate, they will be able to learn, they will be able to come up with the lessons they have, because there are areas where Romania already performs and in which other colleagues from OECD have to learn from us. There is also another important benefit,” Niculescu.
In addition, he mentioned a symbolic advantage, the OECD being an organization born from the Marshall plane, in 1947.
“The ancestor of OCDe, Ocee, the organization for European Economic Cooperation, is the one that implemented the Marshall Plan in Europe. We know very well that in 1947- 48 only at the Marshall plan we did not think or thought, but Moscow decided otherwise. Now we have the chance to enter the OECD,” said Luca Niculescu.
