Romania's Senate Speaker, Mircea Geoana declared at the Central and South Eastern European Financial Forum in Bucharest that foreign banks must understand the situation and be responsive to finding solutions to relaunch credits and have acceptable interest rates. He added that the relationship between state and market must be reconsidered. However, PM Boc declared that he does not believe the crisis is ideological.

Here are Mircea Geoana's most important declarations

  • Stiglizt, as a prophet anticipated the crisis and declared that the market represents a great risk. Today, we witness that the economic theory that dominated in the last thirty years is over. The presence of Joseph Stiglitz must be a call to action. Romania wasted precious years in which the economy functioned very well and did not take advantage to invest in infrastructure. The money were not used to counter the effects of a possible crisis
  • The obligation of the government is to dare and act. We need to rethink the way we debate the relationship between the state and the market. An absent state in the economy is a hilarious proposal today. But a state undermining the economy is just as bad. We need to re-balance this relationship
  • Eastern and Central European countries were not favored by the crisis
  • The crisis will have winners and losers: it is important for our country to recover fast from the crisis as a winner
  • Foreign banks in Romania must understand their medium and long term interest: at the time they have to cooperate with the state to relaunch credits and decrease interest rates to an acceptable level

PM Emil Boc

  • this economic crisis is not ideological but it does not mean that some market instruments should not be adjusted
  • the crisis can be translated in the incapacity of some control mechanisms to function properly: especially those in the banking system
  • the European Council will come up with a plan to regulate the financial sector
  • I believe in the market economy which can offer prosperity and I think that a strengthening of the financial control instruments can relaunch the economy
  • Romania was also hit by the crisis and its effects were emphasized by the incompetent governance in times of prosperity. We need to see the crisis as an opportunity to take those measures that no government in the last 20 years dared to take.
  • Measures that order salaries in the public sector, a reform in the pensions system and the decentralization of the administration.