Acting CommMin calls discarding ministry totally uninspired decision as much European funds would be lost

Discarding the Ministry of Communications would be a mistake, given that it would lead to delays in the digitisation programmes and the loss of a large amount of European funds, said the acting Communications Minister Alexandru Petrescu told AGERPRES on Thursday. 

He attended the Bucharest Forum on Thursday, an event organised by the Aspen Institute Romania and the Bucharest Office of the German Marshall Fund of the US, and, upon leaving the venue he was asked to comment on the intention of the National Liberal Party (PNL) to discard the Ministry of Communications by merging it with the Ministry of Transportation in the future government. 

"I find discarding the Ministry of Communications and the Information Society an utterly uninspired solution and, if confirmed, merging this ministry or incorporating it with the Ministry of Transport will lead to both ministries underperforming. I strongly believe that the Ministry of Communications must stay on its own," said Petrescu. 

In his opinion, the activity of his ministry is not compatible with that of the Ministry of Transport. 

"PNL had another attempt, at the time when there was the Democratic Convention, and even managed to discard the ministry. It was a different reality from that of Europe in 2019. Today, the weight of projects and the digital agenda is extremely important in the framework of the ministry. Let us not forget that we had a European digital economy portfolio, we have to make up for alignment with the European digital standards, which is why discarding the ministry would be an extremely uninspired decision, with a series of disastrous consequences to the digitisation of Romania," added Petrescu. 

Asked what the negative effects would be, he replied: "The programmes related to the digitisation agenda would be delayed, much European funds would be lost and the main loser would be the Romanian citizens, who will not be able to benefit in the future from digitised public services."