Romania received the first (of a total of 26) formal opinion in the process of joining the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), namely from the Committee of Senior Budget Officials (SBO).

During this week, the OECD approved the first Formal Opinion within a sectoral committee, the Romanian Ministry of Finance announced.

“We are fully involved in the accession process, we treat each stage with the utmost seriousness, and we are eager to collaborate with OECD experts to align ourselves with the best OECD policies and practices," commented State Secretary Carmen Moraru, who participated in the country evaluation that took place on December 19.

Romania’s budget planning and execution practices have improved, according to the OECD’s experts. 

Romania missed by more than 1% of GDP the deficit target last year when the prime minister took over the budget execution for the last three months, distributing the money under non-transparent principles, however. Recently, finance minister Marcel Bolos prompted reactions when claiming that Romania can not cut the budget deficit in an electoral year and the country will need at least seven years to bring the public gap under 3% of GDP (from an unrealistic target of 5% this year).

However, Romania's progress was scored by referring to the four key principles that guide the evaluation of the candidate states within the SBO Committee:

- the efficiency of expenses through the efficient allocation and reallocation of public resources based on concrete evidence;
- the ability to meet existing and future budgetary challenges and address high-level policy priorities in a sustainable manner;
- accuracy and accessibility of public spending through clear transparency and accountability mechanisms;
- effective oversight of the budget process by parliaments and the existence of citizen involvement mechanisms.

On January 25, 2022, the OECD’s governing body (the Council) decided to take the first step in accession discussions with six candidate countries for OECD membership – Argentina, Brazil, Bulgaria, Croatia, Peru and Romania. Accession Roadmaps for Brazil, Bulgaria, Croatia, Peru, and Romania were adopted at the Council meeting at the Ministerial level on June 10, 2022.

iulian@romania-insider.com

(Photo source: Aleksandr Atkishkin/Dreamstime.com)