Niculescu:In Romania's OECD accession, 14 out of 25 committees closed down

In Romania's accession to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), 14 out of 25 committees have closed down, and a bill on private pensions is a priority recommendation of the organisation, senior official with the Romanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs Luca Niculescu told a public debate on the bill on Monday held by the Ministry of Labour.Niculescu, as coordinator of Romania's accession to the OECD, said that accession is set for 2026, which means that all technical discussions must be concluded by the end of December, early 2026 at the latest."Romania's accession to OECD, which after joining NATO and the European Union is Romania's most important project in the coming period, will bring more prosperity to Romania, will bring more investment, will bring more solid and credible institutions, will bring a larger dimension of Romania on the international economic map, it will mean more influence for Romania in the world. Basically, we are entering the club of the most developed democratic economies in the world. There is a target set by the political class for joining the OECD, which is 2026. To join in 2026, Romania has to finish practically all the technical discussions by the end of this year, which is by December 2025, let's say early 2026. The schedule is very tight; Romania is reviewed by 25 OECD committees. Basically, it bears some resemblance to the accession to the European Union, where we had chapters to close, here we have committees to close and as if 25 were not enough, many of them also have subcommittees or working groups, such as the working group on private pensions. The process began three years ago, and after the reviews Romania receives recommendations, even priority recommendations. The priority recommendations, although they are called recommendations, are actual prerequisites without which Romania cannot join OECD," Niculescu said.According to him, the creation of the legal framework on the payment of private pensions is a priority recommendation, therefore a precondition that Romania must meet."When you have a priority recommendation, you know that you have to come up with some changes in policies, practices, sometimes legislation. And we, in the coordination team, make sure that the ministries, that the institutions in Romania advance on this path, and so far we have made good progress, that is, out of the 25 committees we managed to close 14 and, as I said, we expect and want to close the others in the coming period. The Ministry of Labour, in fact, concluded the Chapter on Labor and Social Affairs, published the report a few weeks ago together with those from OECD. (...) Indeed, now there is this bill (...) which I mean is also as a result of a priority recommendation from OECD. So, when we talk about the priority recommendation, we are talking about a condition that Romania must meet. So, from our point of view, the coordination team, it is important that this priority recommendation is met. So far, as I said, we have made good progress with all chapters; there are still a few that we are working on, but this is a subject of great public interest and it is very normal that it is of great public interest, so it is very good that this debate is taking place because, indeed, the law has been made transparent, there have been discussions, I have had all kinds of meetings in which I have participated or I have been informed about them, but it is very, very good and I hope that things will be even clearer after this discussion," said Niculescu.Sources say that the bill on the payment of private pensions will have to pass through the government in no more than two weeks, given that the review by the Working Group on Private Pensions is scheduled in less than a month.The bill was put up for a first reading at a government meeting of August 8, and it provides for two forms of payment extraction, namely programmed withdrawal, in which case the pension is paid out over a determined period, with the guarantee of full reimbursement of the assets, or annuities, with payment throughout the participant's lifetime. In addition to these two forms of payment, pensioners are also entitled to withdraw a lump sum of up to 25% of the assets, similarly to those applied in other European states.