A big problem of the European Union is its extremely cumbersome regulations, given that there are hundreds of pages of laws for everything, Adrian Codirlasu, CFA Romania deputy chairman, told a specialist conference on Tuesday.

„The European Union has a big competitiveness problem and we see that, after the 2008-2009 crisis, the European Union and the United States started from about the same level. We see now, the United States is about 40% in terms of GDP above the European Union. I think that a big factor in that is the overregulation in the European Union,” said Codirlasu.

He mentioned AI, saying that „the European Union has surpassed itself”, given that „it has regulated something it does not have.”

„AI companies are in the United States, they are not in the European Union, and we see, when Romania also had a company working in this sector, it was a global leader at the time, where was it listed? On the Nasdaq. Where was it registered? In the United States. It is precisely through a much more investment- and innovation-friendly environment that technology companies from all over the world are attracted to the United States, and those from Europe are also going there to be listed. I think that a big problem of the European Union is the regulation that is extremely, extremely stuffy, that is, for everything there are hundreds of pages of laws.”

According to Codirlasu, the cost of entering the market increases highly due to overregulation, the whole series of laws that has to be observed and because it is necessary to invest both in equipment and in people.

„Because of that, few companies appear in Europe. No bank has started up in the financial industry, on the contrary, they are merging. Let’s take the technology industry, like a unicorn, it goes to the United States to be listed and do business there. I think that is a problem and the European Union should somehow take measures,” said the CFA Romania official.

At the same time, he explained that the Romanian economy is losing competitiveness.

„Coming back to the Romanian economy. We are losing competitiveness, because we see the fiscal incentive we have given to the economy and the result, about 0.7% GDP growth in the first half of the year, maybe 1% we will get this year, although the monthly data still show a slowdown. It’s true, this comes amidst a slowdown in all the European Union, even a stagnation. We see that Germany had three consecutive quarters of economic decline, in the fourth, the last one, it came out at zero. But it is clear, the European Union is slowing down, which is affecting us as well and we are lucky that America does not enter a recession, because it will affect the entire global market. Our problem is having this high deficit. (…) Risk is if an event occurs that leads to a strong version of risk in global markets. That is actually the risk we take as an economy,” Codirlasu added.

The government investment programme, the objectives of the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR) for 2024-2025 and the European funds from the multiannual framework for Romania were some of the subjects discussed at the 5th edition of the RoInvest conference organised on Tuesday in Bucharest.

AGERPRES