Romania’s Membership of International Financial Institutions – a Necessary Change

After a 17-year transformation process from a centralized economy to a functional market economy, Romania joined the European Union on January 1, 2007. Today, 11 years after the EU accession, Romania is still looking forward to achieve many of the real convergence conditions and also to join the euro zone. Independent of these, as an upper medium income country is now the time to evaluate its role, benefits and obligations as a shareholder in various international financial institutions – multilateral development banks and multilateral regional banks – as a first step in assuming an active and positive role in the development international community. At the EU level, international development is slowly but constant evolving to a coherent and common approach. However, individual member states still have a lot of space to maneuver to use specific individual approaches in pursuing their own interests. The objective of this paper is to signal that for Romania the right time has come to change its passive and reactive approach of its membership in various international financial institutions for a new dynamic and active approach. In terms of financial resources that can be mobilized and used for international development Romania cannot realistically aspire to stay along with the big traditional donors. However, its relatively small contribution can be leveraged by its membership in such multilateral and/or regional institutions so to maximize the benefits both for the international community and for the Romanian taxpayer.