Romania, towards the OECD

Romania has fulfilled half of the OECD accession requirements

Ştefan Stoica, 03.04.2025, 13:50

Romania is on track to complete all the technical analyses for joining the OECD in the next twelve months or so. The announcement was made by the Secretary General of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, Matthias Cormann, in a video message sent to a conference attended by the country’s top officials. This month, Bucharest is expected to finalize 13 of the 25 technical analyses.

Accession to OECD, which equates to greater investments and a more efficient public administration, should be considered by Romania as a new national goal, just like the NATO, EU and Schengen accession, the conference participants argued. The interim president, Ilie Bolojan, stressed that the state must create the context in which Romanians can showcase their creativity, and business people can perform and create development and prosperity. He pleaded for the best possible governance, for accessing European funds and keeping deficits under control, for creating conditions in which work and performance are rewarded, and lack of performance is discouraged.

Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu recalled that in the year and a half since the official application was submitted, 12 objectives had been met, almost half of the number of objectives that must be met for OECD membership. Dan Şucu, one of the business people who participated in the conference, criticized the fact that certain economic policies were not aligned with the OECD principles. He gave as examples the capping of energy and insurance prices, which became a permanent feature and not an exceptional measure, or the display of the trade mark-up on all products in Romania. In his opinion, such interventions fundamentally contradict the market-based principles that the OECD supports.

In turn, Ramona Jurubiţă, vice-president of the Foreign Investors Council, called for the adoption of reforms in key areas, which are in line with OECD standards and will lead to increased incomes. In her opinion, reforms in education, taxation, state-owned companies and administrative capacity can increase the annual rate of the Gross Domestic Product by up to one percentage point. Thus, Romania’s accession to the OECD can help us get out of the so-called middle-income trap, which we have been talking about lately, Jurubiţă added.

Romania’s coordinator for OECD integration, Luca Niculescu, stressed that everyone – the political class, the business community – wants OECD integration and that the process is going well. He stressed, however, that the most difficult files will have to be addressed next year. Romania has set itself the goal of completing the OECD integration process next year. (MI)