Former PM Ciolos: At current stage, Romania needs regions as development drivers

Former Prime Minister Dacian Ciolos said on Tuesday evening in Alba Iulia that Romania's current stage requires regions to act as development drivers and ensure a better use of resources in the territory. 

"After all, regionalization is done based on a political decision. (...) Experts' analyses already exist and in 2014 we were almost at the point of making a decision, there was a decision in the making as early as in 2013, but we ended up aborting the process again for political reasons. I believe that at the current stage Romania needs regions to act as development factors that ensure a better use of resources in the territory, with a view to generating development. I think that this should be the purpose of the regions, because you also define a region according to your goals, to what you want to do with the respective region, and I believe that in Romania, at this moment, we need regions to boost development and enable the central state ensure a balanced development of the territory under its authority. I think this should be the main element," Ciolos told a debate organized by the Romania 100 Platform. 

The former PM added that, on the other hand, if the region is introduced as a new administrative tier without simplifying other administrative levels, things will only get more complicated. 

"From my point of view, regionalization should be part of an administrative reform process, at local level included. We made an attempt in 2016, knowing that a local territorial-administrative reform is complicated to do (...), we wanted to advance with this, and maybe a transitory solution in enforcing such a reform before making a binding decision should be to come up with an incentive decision to this end, that is offer extra money and development possibilities for a group of communities that decide to work together. That would be giving extra money for development to group of communities, or a group of cities, that is a certain territorial area, that decide to pool certain things, certain services, to get involved, to increase efficiency," Ciolos explained. 

The former PM participated on Tuesday at the Principia Museum in Alba Iulia in a debate on "Good Governance - From Theory to Action".