Highlights of Economist Impact’s Romania Government Roundtable

Highlights of Economist Impact’s Romania Government Roundtable

Bucharest, March 30th, March 31st, April 1st, 2026

Crisis, Challenges, Commitment, Convergence, Competitiveness

A landmark event: This inaugural Romania Government Roundtable was notable for the high-level participation of politicians and business representatives and for the large number of attendees over the three-day event. The speakers included presidents (Romania, Moldova), prime ministers (Romania, Moldova, Albania), government ministers (Romania, Moldova, Greece, Bulgaria, Albania), central bank governors (Romania, Greece, Moldova), former prime ministers and foreign ministers (Greece, Italy, Moldova, Turkey), EU and NATO officials, Ambassadors from the US and Europe and a top-class collection of other speakers and interlocutors, from Nobel laureate Daron Acemoglou to film-maker Oliver Stone. The discussions ranged from geopolitics, energy security, defence and the future of democracy to fiscal and monetary policy, energy, health, technology and AI, banking and finance, investment, global capital flows, and PPPs.

Romania, past, present, and future: Opening the event at the historic Romanian Athenaeum on Monday March 30th, the President of Romania, Nicusor Dan, spoke of the country’s resilience as a strength. From the perspective of the country’s negative experiences during the first and second world wars and during the postwar communist era to 1990, Romania’s subsequent development must be regarded as “a great success story”, said the president. He noted that Romania’s GDP at PPP had risen from about 26% in 2000 to an estimated 78% in 2024. Focusing on the present, the president spoke of the threat posed by Russian hybrid attacks and information warfare, as well as the political and economic disruption presented by the new global disorder. In terms of future challenges, the president referred to Nobel Laureate and guest speaker Daron Acemoglou’s work on institutional reform being a foundation of prosperity and growth and he acknowledged that Romania had much to do in this regard. He also said that Romania supported the completion by 2028 of the EU single market union in financial services, energy, and digital connectivity to boost the competitiveness of the bloc, as proposed by another guest speaker, Enrico Letta, in his 2024 report.

A special relationship: In a follow-up video address to the assembled guests, the president of Moldova, Maia Sandu, underlined the importance for her country of strengthening relations with Romania and other European partners at a time of pronounced global turbulence. Referring to the challenges Moldova has faced in recent years, including energy supply and price shocks and hybrid warfare by Russia, President Sandu said that Moscow’s attempts to destabilise Moldova have failed and Moldova has proved resilient. Moldova has worked hard to build its own defences against external destabilisation but also owes much to the Ukrainian people whose defence of their national sovereignty has provided a defensive buffer for Moldova. Romania has been a staunch ally and bilateral ties have deepened. The two countries are integrating their energy systems and forging new economic partnerships. The support of other EU partners in helping Moldova to implement the reforms that are bringing the country closer to membership has also been critical.

Five Cs: Several themes emerged from the three-day Government Roundtable. These were the challenges presented by the latest global crisis occasioned by the Iran war, following so soon after the those triggered by the Covid-19 pandemic of 2020-21 and Russia’s war in Ukraine 2022-ongoing. Romania also suffered its own domestic political crisis in 2024-25 and is still dealing with the consequences of previous political and economic misgovernance. The commitment of Romanian policymakers to adhere to the fiscal consolidation agenda while protecting people from the consequences of the external shock precipitated by the war in the Gulf was a recurring message. Many speakers recalled that Romania had traversed multiple crises and challenges in the decades since 1990 and has proved to be resilient. This helps to explain Romania’s track record of economic convergence with the EU, second only to that of Poland in terms of its success rate, such that it is on the verge of joining the OECD in 2026. Ensuring that Romania maintains competitiveness amid major geopolitical, geo-economic and technological shifts was the focus of many of the discussions at the Roundtable. The old growth model that has served the country well in the past is no longer viable as the basis for future prosperity. Despite acknowledgement of the political and economic challenges facing Romania, the mood of the Roundtable was notably positive about the country’s prospects.

The first Economist Impact Roundtable with the Government of Romania took place against the backdrop of the Gulf War that began with the US/Israeli military attack on Iran on February 28th. The war has resulted in the effective closure to commercial shipping of the Strait of Hormuz, through which 20% of the world’s oil supplies and 20% of global liquified natural gas (LNG) transit. Together with Iranian attacks on vital energy and other infrastructure facilities in neighbouring Gulf states, this has caused a major energy shock that will have long-term repercussions for inflation and growth and will create difficult policy choices for governments and central banks. The fallout from the war will compound the economic and political challenges confronting the Romanian government, which is one year into implementing a fiscal consolidation and austerity programme to reduce the country’s large fiscal and external deficits.

The central bank governors of Romania and Greece, Mugur Isarescu and Yannis Stournaras, addressed the economic repercussions of war in the Gulf in their keynote speeches at the Athenaeum. Governor Isarescu said that central bankers cannot prevent volatility arising from external shocks, rather their job is to maintain stability. “Passivity is not an option when crises hit,” said the governor, “proactive policies are required.” Mr Isarescu emphasised the importance of coordination between monetary and fiscal policies, saying that the challenge was controlling inflation without stifling growth, a point echoed by the Romanian Minister of Finance, Alexandru Nazare, on the final day of the Roundtable. Mr Stournaras warned that the economic fallout from the Gulf War would be protracted even if the conflict were to end soon. The energy shock will have a stagflationary effect and inflation will be more difficult to manage now than after the pandemic. This is because the experience of inflationary pressures has pervaded society in recent years, whereas when the pandemic struck there was no recent experience. Nevertheless, Governor Stournaras said that Europe could address the task from a good starting point, given the inflation had been moving within the 2% target range for a year now, providing some slack. This was an impressive achievement in the context of Europe’s fragmented market.

Professor Daron Acemoglou focused on the challenges facing liberal democracy in his address to the Athenaeum audience. He outlined some of the ideas in his forthcoming book on the topic, explaining why liberal democracy was no longer delivering on its promises. The shift in economic and social conditions from the 1970s onwards, after the end of the postwar boom, explains a lot. The growth slowdown in the mature Western economies, combined with the rise of automation and the decimation of traditional communities, transformed manufacturing, employment, wages, education, and changed the face of inequality over several decades. In an onstage discussion with the Roundtable chairs, Joan Hoey and Alasdair Ross of The Economist Group, professor Acemoglou discussed what went wrong and how representative democracy can start delivering again.

Enrico Letta, EU rapporteur on the future of the single market and president of the Jacques Delors Institute, addressed Europe’s competitiveness problems and how they can be resolved. In a striking illustration of how the world has changed at Europe’s expense since the euro zone was established in 2001, Mr Letta told the audience that back then Italy was bigger than China and India together in GDP terms. Today China and India are 20 times bigger than Italy. Mr Letta’s central message was that “if we are not integrated, we have no chance”. Only completion of the single market union, in financial, energy and digital, can provide Europe with the scale that is necessary for investment in defence, energy, tech and more. By contrast, a fragmented Europe has no chance of being competitive in the new geo-economic global order.

Overcoming fragmentation in politics, defence, security, and energy were major themes of the second day of the Roundtable. Prime Minister of Romania Ilie Bolojan highlighted Romania’s strategic position on the eastern frontier of Europe and urged the EU to strengthen it by continuing eastwards enlargement and investing in energy corridors. He argued that defence, security and economic development are inseparable and that the enlargement of the EU to the western Balkans and Moldova would contribute to the security and economic weight of Europe. The prime minister said that the challenge for his government is to address the lack of good governance, deliver stability and growth and increase the living standards of its citizens. The prime minister of Moldova, Alexandru Munteanu, concurred with Mr Bolojan and said that his country was “walking the walk and not just talking the talk” when it comes to EU membership.

The government of Moldova is focused on delivering and is implementing 24 key reforms as part of its EU accession agenda. Edi Rama, prime minister of Albania, made the case for the accession of the western Balkan countries, and called for candidate countries to work together towards that end.

Mr Munteanu’s comments were expanded in a session on the strategic partnerships between Romania, Moldova, and their neighbours later that day. Christian Busoi, secretary of state in Romania’s energy ministry and Dorin Recean and Ion Sturza, two former prime ministers of Moldova, discussed the form those partnerships are taking. Romania is providing strong support for Moldova’s accession, advocating at an EU level, while working on joint projects in energy, infrastructure and financial services. Mr Recean identified seven strategic areas of Romania-Moldova co-operation, in digital, energy, energy inter-connectors, transport, ports, finance and talent. Trade between the two countries has reached Euro3bn already and is growing rapidly. Mr Sturdza observed that the external perception of Moldova had changed in Europe, driven by a new generation of leaders and a geopolitical and policy reorientation. He also pointed out that Moldova is “not in a virtual war with Russia, we are in a real war” because Moscow wants to punish the country for its westwards shift. Russia’s hybrid war has also spurred the development of Moldova’s burgeoning IT services, cyber-security and AI industry.

A session on Europe’s security architecture heard from Tarja Jaakkola of NATO about how the alliance is helping Europe develop its defence industry and capabilities. She discussed the bloc’s ambitious spending targets, rearmament plans, procurement, production, and inter-operability issues, among other things. She praised Romania for taking decisive action to upgrade its air defence systems, while the Romanian defence minister Radu Miruta revealed that 40% of his ministry’s budget was going into new investments in SAFE projects. Industry representatives from PPC Group and E.ON Romania said that the EU finally had a defence strategy but regretted that it did not have an energy security strategy. Europe needs to go beyond the green deal and finally establish a single market in energy. The two speakers said that the bloc had not learned the lessons of the Russia-Ukraine crisis, which is that systems based on electricity were best. In Romania, they argued that the public and private sectors needed to work more closely together.

Several sessions were devoted to energy security, energy corridors, natural gas exploration and corridors in the Black Sea region, the green energy transition, and the role of AI in electricity grid development. Former prime minister of Turkey, Ahmet Davutoglou, called for a “mindset revolution” in Europe regarding the importance of the Black Sea and Southeast Europe (SEE) region. Dimitris Avramopoulos, former foreign minister of Greece, said that the SEE region was at the centre of developments and needed to maximise the opportunities arising from its strategic geographical location. Lazar Comanescu of the Organisation of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation (BSEC) focused his remarks on the importance of regional cooperation in SEE/the Black Sea region to mitigate rising risk at a time of geopolitical disruption. Energy expert Geoffrey Pyatt emphasised the geopolitical salience of energy issues and praised Romania for having pursued a smart energy strategy embracing diversification of energy sources, routes, and carriers (Romania is the only country in Europe close to achieving energy self-sufficiency). His key takeaway was that the energy and economic repercussions of the Gulf war would be more far-reaching and long-lasting than anyone imagines today.

A session devoted to SEE’s increasingly vital role in European energy market heard a keynote speech from the US Ambassador to Greece, Kimberley Guilfoyle, who declared that the vertical corridor “represents more than infrastructure, it represents freedom,” in particular freedom from dependency on Russian gas. The ambassador said that the US is committed to stopping every cubic meter of Russian gas imports to Europe. Romania’s energy minister Bogdan-Gruia Ivan said that the US was a key ally and partner and agreed on the need to curtail Russian gas imports. Romania’s diverse energy mix, including its growing nuclear capacity and Neptune Deep offshore gas project in the Black Sea, will enable it to play a vital role in contributing to Europe’s energy security. Stavros Papastavrou, the Greek energy minister, agreed with Ambassador Guilfoyle that energy represents freedom, security, and life. He described the vertical corridor as not only as a pipeline for molecules, but as an artery of prosperity and freedom. He said that the western Balkans, including Serbia and North Macedonia, should be included in the corridor. Bulgaria’s energy minister emphasised the importance of regional inter-connections, which are proliferating in the SEE region. Alexandros Exarchou of AKTOR Group said he was tired of seeing Europe always reacting to events instead of planning ahead and dreaded what was coming in Europe next winter in the form of energy shortages and high gas prices.

In a session devoted to Europe’s green transition, Frans Timmermans regretted that the Green Deal had become part of the culture wars, saying that Europe must prepare for the future and take its destiny into its own hands. He insisted that Europe needs to create its own energy sovereignty and not exchange one dependency (on Russian gas) for another (US LNG). The speakers representing Romanian renewable energy companies and sustainability initiatives discussed the prospects for hydropower, nuclear power (including SMRs), solar and wind in Romania and heard from Therme group about how Romania is decarbonising the urban environment. A letter from film directors and producers Oliver Stone and Rob Wilson, who are filming a follow-up to their film “Nuclear Now,” referred to positive developments in the three years since the film was released. These include spent fuel recycling, expanded SMR production, and meaningful progress in fusion.

In a panel discussing the potential of the Black Sea for natural gas corridors and exploration, the speakers complained that the EU was failing to support European gas producers and was instead paying high prices for US and Qatari LNG. Sebastian Burduja, honorary counsellor to the president and former minister of energy of Romania, said he believed in pragmatism not ideology. Facing a double disruption of energy from the Ukraine and Gulf wars, Mr Burduja said the lesson is that Europe needs energy corridors under its control. Matthew Bryza, a former US deputy assistant secretary of state for European & Eurasian Affairs, said that the good news for Europe was that Neptune Deep, a major Romanian offshore gas project in the Black Sea  operated by OMV Petrom and Romgaz, would begin producing gas in 2027; and that Turkey, Azerbaijan and Georgia had done their homework in exploiting gas in the Caspian Sea that would supply gas to Europe via the southern corridor. The bad news, he said, was that the EU was underestimating the potential of the Black Sea and failing to incentivise Romanian and other producers who were taking on the risk themselves. The three industry speakers, Mark Beacom of Black Sea Oil & Gas, Razvan Popescu of SNGN Romgaz and Oana-Alexandra Ijdelea of Ijdelea & Associates decried the effective moratorium on exploiting the estimated 200bcm of gas in the Black Sea because of bureaucratic and legal hurdles in Romania and the EU. It is impossible to get concessions for Black Sea fields due to the suspension of auctions for offshore blocks for the past five years. However, Neptune Deep is a big leap forward, having started in 2022 with private investors taking a risk and being on track to start producing in 2027. The panellists emphasised that the development of renewables was essential, but that gas would remain the backbone of energy supply for a long time to come during the green transition.

Discussing the contribution of AI to an urgent restructuring of electricity grids, a panel drawn from policy makers, industry bodies and private companies concluded that the technology could deliver more energy efficiency than its electricity-hungry infrastructure consumes. The theme of electrification’s role in delivering net zero emissions targets figured prominently, given greater salience in the context of the wars in Ukraine and Iran and their disruptive impact on energy supply chains. The panel, featuring Kristian Ruby, secretary general of Eurelectric, an industry body, and George Niculescu, president of ANRE, the Romanian energy regulatory, as well as business leaders from ADREM (Corneliu Bodea), ENGIE Romania (Nicolas Richard), Eximprod Engineering (Radu Vasile), Evryo Group (Ondrej Safar) and Hagag Energy (Răzvan Pârvulescu), agreed that AI can greatly increase the efficiency of smart grids, balancing supply and demand across complex networks more smoothly than would otherwise be the case.  

In a session on the financial landscape in Romania and Europe, Romania’s Minister of Finance, Alexandru Nazare, said that the true test of economic leadership in 2026 is to maintain fiscal responsibility and deficit targets while shielding citizens from external shocks. His ministry is committed to maintaining Romania’s credibility in international markets by continuing with the government’s fiscal consolidation plans. The fiscal adjustment is on track in the early months of 2026, and fiscal discipline has not come at the expense of investment, with public investment spending up 16% year on year in 2025. The government has created a task force to decide on fuel crisis measures and will have measures in place that will support citizens without compromising fiscal targets. Alexandru Petrescu, president of the ASF financial supervisory authority pointed to the disconnect between geopolitical/political turmoil and the success of Romania’s banking and financial markets. Omer Tetik of Banca Transylvania also emphasised Romania’s achievements, not only in banking, insurance, private pensions, and capital markets, but also in economic convergence, energy independence, manufacturing, grain and corn production, and success in attracting large foreign investment inflows. Three of the top 10 car models in Europe are produced in Romania. Ted Cominos of Eversheds Sutherland said that he had been advising investors in Romania for two decades and was confident that Romania would continue to be an attractive market for FDI.

Seth Bernstein of Bernstein Equity Partners, a leading international investor, joined the Roundtable to share his insights on investing in turbulent times. He began by assuring the audience that the conflict in the Middle East would be over within four weeks and that President Donald Trump, a friend of Mr Bernstein, would not allow the US to be dragged into a long war. Addressing the strategic purpose behind the US attack on Iran, Mr Bernstein said that the president’s aim was to rebalance power in the world for the global good, at the expense of powers such as China, Russia, Iran and Venezuela. US interventions aim to prevent powers such as China from acquiring illegal, discounted oil supplies, or to stop drug trafficking and associated violent crime from destroying entire countries. Rather than earning the US lots of money, this endeavour was costing it money. Moving on to international capital markets, Mr Bernstein said that analysts no longer understand the global economy and this creates an opportunity for hedge funds to get ahead of the game and become long-term investors. He emphasised that it was important for investors to take the long view and to make a judgement about political leadership in a country before deciding to invest. He spoke positively of the potential in Romania and Greece as well as some Asian markets.

Continuing with the theme of finance, various sessions touched on how public and private funding can best be combined to maximise the impact of each. A panel comprising Ionuț-Cristian Săvoiu, from Romania’s Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure, Lia Olguța Vasilescu, the mayor of Craiova in Romania’s southwest, and Yasser El-Gammal, country manager for Romania and Hungary from the World Bank, addressed the topic head on. They agreed that, though badly bruised after experiences in western Europe early in the century, the Public Private Partnership model remains a promising way of funding large, long-term projects within fiscal constraints. Much depended on assuring the correct legal frameworks were in place, they said, and contracts had to retain some flexibility to survive changing conditions and the potential withdrawal of key partners during a project’s lifetime. However, Ms Vasilescu pointed out that, while PPPs offer a promising financing model at the municipal level, lack of coordination between municipalities and the national government presented a hurdle.

In a keynote address, Oana Gheorghiu, deputy prime minister of Romania, set out the government’s plans to tackle the structural barriers to achieving competitiveness in a more demanding geopolitical and economic environment. Ms Gheorghiu argued that Romania’s growth model—based on low labour costs, strong consumption, and a certain tolerance for delayed reforms—has delivered progress. But in today’s environment, that model is reaching its limits and Romania’s economy needs to move up the value chain. To achieve this the government must make progress in reforming state-owned enterprises in key sectors such as energy, transport, and infrastructure is a credibility test for the government. It must ensure macroeconomic stability and establish a predictable operating environment for domestic and private capital to make sure that investment is a key growth driver. The government must embrace digitalisation to trim bureaucracy, become more efficient, and improve services for citizens and businesses. The minister concluded that successful reform depends not only on legislation and regulations, but on political will, and a commitment to scaling up reform efforts to deliver structural change.

Continuing the discussion about digitalisation and technological transition, Romania’s minister of economy, digitalisation, entrepreneurship, and tourism, Irineu Darau, and Iwona Sikora, senior vice-president and general manager EMEA of Iron Mountain discussed how AI and digitalisation are reshaping how Romania and other countries are operating, innovating, and growing. Minister Darau spoke about the challenge of upskilling the workforce and preserving SMEs in an era of technological change. He identified three imperatives for Romania: the state must digitise and invest heavily in innovation and digital technologies; it needs to pursue holistic approaches given the challenges related to human capital; and the country needs to find a way to become attractive to capital and people from outside Europe. Ms Sikora brought a wider perspective to the discussion based on her own experience working across the EMEA region, sharing her insights about how countries such as Romania can position themselves as leaders in digital transformation. She spoke about some of the bottlenecks holding back the region’s digital potential but also pointed out its strengths in terms of human capital; in Romania that includes strengths in STEM subjects, an engineering tradition, and an entrepreneurial mindset.

Several sessions at the Roundtable focused on labour markets and human capital. The Roundtable audience heard from Roxana Minzatu, executive vice-president for social rights and skills, quality jobs, and preparedness at the European Commission. In a wide-ranging speech and discussion, Ms Minzatu spoke about the under-utilised industrial potential of the Southeast Europe region. She acknowledged that Romania’s old growth model had brough fast convergence but focused on the policies required to move the country higher up the value chain, including by investing in innovation and digitalization, creating new industries and good jobs, reskilling and upskilling the workforce, adapting the education system and increasing labour force participation among youth and women. These themes were taken up by Florin Manole, the Minister of Labour of Romania, in a conversation about human capital and the labour market, who focused on the problem of youth unemployment and the barriers faced by the Roma minority in education and employment. The effective exclusion of certain groups from full participation economic life was a democratic deficit in Romania and the wider region that had yet to be fully addressed he argued. The minister observed that the government fiscal consolidation and austerity programme made it even more difficult to address social problems such as these.

A related session on health care systems facing demographic, social and economic challenges heard from Romania’s minister of health Alexandru-Florin Rogobete, Liliana Venetia Vildiriki, secretary general for health services in Greece, and WHO director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, as well as three speakers engaged in private healthcare, hospital building projects and health insurance in Romania. The minister said that for the first time in a long time Romania is building new hospitals, with 22 now in progress, and refurbishing old hospitals. The EU’s RRF facility has been a factor in getting this under way in 2022. He identified four issues that need urgent attention: how to bring more human resources in healthcare, especially GPs and some specialties; how to reform the medicines funding system and obtain new medicines; how to digitise the healthcare system in partnership with the private sector; how to rethink the funding of the healthcare system, including other insurers and PPPs. Ms Vildiriki said that the main policy question was how to provide accessible, efficient, low-cost, and high-quality healthcare for citizens, and she shared some of the successful strategies that Greece has pursued, especially in preventive medicine and digital solutions. Fady Chreih of Regina Maria spoke about the demographic challenges facing Romania, labour shortages in the medical and healthcare workforce, and the constraints of the healthcare financing system. He proposed some immediate steps that could be taken to close the gap between patient expectations and what the present system is providing, including using private healthcare facilities to meet patient needs, expanding screening programmes and investing in preventive medicine strategies and even introducing some form of compulsory health insurance such as in France. Mehmet Ali Bayar of CCN Holding said that one solution was to build new hospitals at scale and shared his company’s experience of building state-of-the-art large hospitals in Turkey and in Romania. Gheorgiana Miron of Groupama, a leading health insurer covering 4m people, agreed that Romanians should be allowed to choose what sort of healthcare services they wanted.

The theme of AI was approached from the point of view of its implications for leadership, and how decision-making and strategic planning are being transformed at the most senior levels by new technology. These issues were discussed by a panel comprising Marcel Cobuz, executive director at TITAN Group, Dan Stratan, chief executive and founder of RCI holding, ING Bank Romania’s chief executive Mihaela Bîtu, Alexandru Chiriță, chief executive, Electrica, and Ionuț Stanimir, chief brand officer at Banca Comercială Română (BCR). The key takeaway from the session was that ethics and moral judgement are of growing importance for leaders as amoral technology takes on more of the heavy lifting in analytical tasks. Panellists agreed that integrity was a key component of good management that only humans can guarantee. Panellists gave examples of the ways in which their organisations are already using AI in their operations, including helping with recruitment and processing documentation.