- February 15, 2024
- Posted by: IDR
- Categories: Conferences, Events
The Romanian Diplomatic Institute hosted, on February 15th, the conference „Optimizarea diplomației economice pentru promovarea intereselor României”(Optimizing Economic Diplomacy to Promote Romania’s Interests).
The conference opened a series of events and training programmes dedicated to economic diplomacy, aimed at boosting this field, which is a vital component of our country’s foreign policy. We were pleased to host numerous guests from relevant structures of the Romanian state, both from the executive and legislative branches, as well as representatives from academia, the media, and civil society.
The special guests who spoke were:
– Lazăr Comănescu, former Minister of Foreign Affairs, currently Secretary General, Black Sea Economic Cooperation Organization.
– Luca Niculescu, Secretary of State, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, national coordinator for Romania’s accession process to the OECD.
– Rareș Ștefan Burlacu, President, Romanian Agency for Investment and Foreign Trade.
The discussion was moderated by Liliana Popescu-Bîrlan, Director General of the IDR.
Mr. Comănescu stressed the importance of strategic cooperation between countries for a mutual economic benefit. He pointed out that history has shown us how competition and rivalry have always been the engines of economic development, but only if they were conducted in a fair and equitable manner. Thus, the European project demonstrated how there can be market competition between states, without the dominance of a single player as the ultimate goal.
The speaker also highlighted how Romania needs to strengthen its economic diplomacy, actively participating in international organizations and facilitating economic relations and connectivity in the Eastern European region. This effort must be multilateral, encourage complementarity, and, crucially, involve the business sector and not just government decisions.
Mr. Burlacu explained the role and importance of ARICE in Romania’s economic diplomacy, along with the actions it is taking to ensure our country’s international profile in the economic field and to accelerate its development. The internationalization of Romanian companies is another vital aspect of affirming our position on the global market. By creating a favorable environment and promoting Romania as an attractive industrial hub for foreign companies, we can attract investment and stimulate innovation in our country. At the time being, ARICE operates with 49 commercial representatives of our country in other countries and is working on streamlining their activity, including by increasing the number and specialization in target areas to promote Romanian business. Mr Burlacu also gave successful examples of attracting investment from Canada, the US and France through ARICE’s efforts to develop strategic sectors such as energy and technological development in Romania. Just as important is ARICE’s involvement, alongside ASE and other actors in the field, in the development of the first state strategy for Romanian companies in foreign trade.
In his speech regarding Romania’s efforts to join the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), Mr Niculescu made a remarkable comparison: the OECD can in fact be considered a NATO of the economy. Among the benefits of Romania’s OECD accession are visibility and credibility in the global financial environment, alignment with international standards and the ability to influence global trends. This is all the more so as 70% of world trade and 90% of direct investment takes place within the OECD. Finally, Secretary of State Niculescu said that joining the OECD will mean that Romania will be even more firmly established in the Euro-Atlantic economic and security area, after joining NATO (2004) and the European Union (2007).
In the Q&A section, details of potential methods of implementing the valuable ideas presented throughout the conference were discussed. A question raised at the end by Professor Constantin Brătianu sums up the essence of the whole debate: How can we make politicians understand the essential importance of economic diplomacy for Romania’s foreign policy? Mr. Lazăr Comănescu indicated as a solution in principle the separation of foreign policy and economic diplomacy from electoral cycles by professionalizing these areas, so that their functioning no longer depends on political appointments at the head of the relevant institutions of the state system.
The answers to every other question are related to this solution. Speakers provided examples indicating that where professionals are promoted on merit in the institutions they lead, remarkable progress has been made both towards OECD membership (Luca Niculescu, MFA) and in promoting Romanian economic operators abroad and foreign investment in Romania (Rareș Burlacu, ARICE).