Romania’s accession to the OECD represents its most important goal, in terms of systematization and transformation of our country, after the accession to NATO and the EU, stated the Secretary of State with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for the OECD accession process, Luca Niculescu, according to Agerpres.

He held a press briefing, on Tuesday, at the Victoria Palace, together with the deputy director of the Directorate for Public Governance of the OECD, Janos Bertok, at the end of a debate on the innovation capacity of the central administration, an event organized on the sidelines of the work mission of the OECD in Romania, with its object the official launch of the „Innovation Capacity Evaluation Report,” the result of the actions carried out during this year, within Component 5 „Public Sector Innovation.”

„As you know, Romania received OECD candidate status in January 2022, January 25 is a very important date for us and then the related roadmap in June. It is a country objective, it is a strategic objective, the most important, I would say, objective of systematization and transformation of Romania after Romania’s accession to NATO and the EU, and the completion of this objective will allow an additional modernization of Romania in the direction of states with consolidated economies,” declared Luca Niculescu.

He added that the process of joining the OECD involves a long and extensive administrative effort.

„It will be a very important test for our administration, considering that Romania is evaluated in 26 fields and will have to internalize more than 230 legal instruments at the level of legislation, policies and internal practices. It is a long-term transformation effort, not only during the accession period, but also after Romania will become an OECD member, which happens to all member states, so they all go through transformation processes even after they are members of the organization,” said Niculescu.

He pointed out that the process represents an opportunity for reforms, respectively a lever for the modernization of the administration through „innovative and systemic” approaches, as shown in the OECD report released on Tuesday. „They are essential aspects for our future functioning, whether we are talking about innovation, transparency, integrity or the efficiency of the public sector,” stated Niculescu.

Agerpres