Digitalization of Romania: directions, bottlenecks and solutions – Government-Private dialogue within the Digital Governance Summit

Dragoș Stanca: We, from the private sector, are happy to see that the new national defense strategy officially recognizes the decisive role that the private sector has had and continues to have in the smooth running of the economy. Entrepreneurs, private companies, corporations have tried to accelerate things and, unfortunately, sometimes, the state has not been their partner — or at least that is how it felt in the private sector.

In a Europe at a competitive disadvantage compared to the United States and other regions of the world, Romania must make an additional effort compared to companies from other parts. However, we are opening bridges and trying to find reasons for optimism. We have them: solid infrastructure, broadband, extraordinary talent.

However, from the Edge Institute report, carried out together with our Estonian colleagues from Digital Nation, we also have less pleasant signals. Digital public services are fragmented, cumbersome, incoherent. Governance is lacking; everyone acts rather on their own. We have institutions that digitize their own needs, not the needs of citizens. I got an unpleasant grade — about 3.1 out of 10. If Romania wants modern public services and a resilient economy, it can only do so through a public-private partnership.

As President Nicușor Dan said, the doors are open for the private sector, and that makes us happy. With me, to try to figure things out, are: Mr. Dragoș Pîslaru, Minister of Investments and European Funds; Mr. Radu Miruță, Minister of Economy, Digitalization, Entrepreneurship and Tourism; Alexandru Nazare, Minister of Finance; and the private sector is represented by my colleague on the Edge Institute board, Elisabeta Moraru (Google), and by the founding member of the Edge Institute, Iulian Stanciu (eMAG).

3.1 out of 10 — I would like to see your perspective very briefly, from the private sector and from the state. Is this too harsh or too generous a note? A warm-up question. Who has the courage to start and set expectations?

Elisabeta Moraru: If you allow me. I would say that this note reflects what a huge opportunity we have in front of us. Because if our intentions — as Edge Institute and as professionals in this room — are to bring added value, then 3 is the grade today, but up to 10 what could we do for citizens? Things can look wonderful.

Dragoș Stanca: And how quickly. Who wants to take on the challenge? Mr. Nazare? Low grade, high grade? And a nuance: from the point of view of each ministry, perhaps things are better with digitalization in some areas than in others. What would be the grade, as a citizen, for public services, and what would be the grade that the Ministry of Finance deserves now?

Alexandru Nazare: I wouldn’t want to make an assessment in terms of grades. There has been a lot of talk in recent years about the digitalization of the Ministry of Finance and the digitalization of ANAF. The debate was so present in the public space, in general terms, that it reached a saturation point. At one point we had budget lines that provided for additional revenues that were to come from digitalization, revenues that never materialized.

This presence in the public space of digitalization as a “hope” of future revenues did not help us, because it must be accompanied by real content. And content always comes with a lot of work. It is meticulous work, an internal battle in the bureaucracy for each change, so that there is a final result. That is why I would avoid general assessments.

What we can say is the following: the PNRR is an enormous opportunity, without which we could not have digitized public finances. The proof is that the 2018 World Bank program was abandoned precisely because it was optional. In contrast, the PNRR, once established — and I can say this because I was there, at the 2021 negotiations — allowed us to include all the financing needs from that time. Each time the bureaucracy said: “we can’t, we don’t have the money”. The PNRR eliminated this problem: there was money, enough and even more than was initially requested.

Now we are four years away and we can say that, at least from the perspective of the Ministry of Finance and ANAF, we will meet all the milestones and targets. So, finances are meeting their PNRR targets. Is this the only level of ambition? I would say no.

Digitalization does not end with the PNRR. It is not enough to take the money. The goal must be to create a digital hub that meets the needs and is permanently updatable. So far we’ve connected databases — eleven databases — and we’re continuing to do that. It’s a laborious process: we’re cleaning up data from old applications, we’re bringing it into new applications, we’re building an infrastructure where all the databases are communicating, and so are the 500–600 applications that are working together. It’s a very complex system.

The goal is to have the milestones met by next summer, and to have the entire process completed by the end of next year. That doesn’t mean we won’t see results along the way — we already see them. We talked about the artificial intelligence software that detects carousel fraud. It’s not the only software. In the same application, we have another module that tracks risk indicators. We have a first set of agreed indicators, on top of which complexity indicators are added.

And I want to insist on something: risk indicators are not exclusively related to digitalization. They are very much related to the real desire of the bureaucracy that manages the system to improve the filters that we introduce. That matters enormously and it shows. For example: in November alone, we carried out 207 checks using these tools. We have tax receivables of 11 million lei. In total, in recent months, there are over 200 million in tax receivables established by ANAF with such tools.

These tools work. Let’s not expect, however, that the results will be overwhelming overnight. I think they are good for the moment we are in now.

Dragoș Stanca: Let’s quickly see a self-assessment of the ministries and digitalized services from your point of view, after which I would like to return a little to a few points of Mr. Nazare, because they are also related to the previous discussion. Please.

Radu Miruță: Hello, first of all. Now, if Mr. Nazare avoided giving grades, I don’t avoid. I would say that, on a scale of 1 to 10, the way students take grades in school, we don’t have a grade that we can apply. In my perspective, we can’t just talk about digitalization; it’s a package of digitalization with telecommunications. Transforming a sheet from analog to digital doesn’t mean much if it can’t be transmitted to another system that can understand it and generate decisions.

From that perspective, we don’t really have a grade. That’s the bad part. The good part is that the space is empty, and if the space is empty, we can arrange the “furniture” in an intelligent way. That’s what happened with mobile telephony, when MPLS technology appeared and when we managed to have those 2000 minutes for a few euros, because others had an older network.

But we have to overcome some barriers. In this fight to overcome barriers, the fact that today we have such a full hall, in such a symbolic and highly relevant place, is a very good sign. Because, beyond the existence or lack of money — and I agree with Mr. Nazare and Mr. Pîslaru, who manage these things — there is still money.

There is a barrier that is mainly related to the fact that, where digitalization appears, light is made where there is darkness. And this is something that many people do not want to admit, but it is a problem. This problem cannot be overcome only by the political class, but it is a synchronous issue between what pushes the political class, which wants the light to come on, and the citizens — public opinion — who are waiting for something to happen. We are talking about transparency, which is the consequence of digitalization.

Dragoș Stanca: And not everyone in the state apparatus wants transparency.

Radu Miruță: I would like to believe that they do, but I saw that not much energy was spent on this. What we are trying to do at the ministry is a team of technical people, which we managed to create functionally last week, to manage the technical part of the architecture of the digitalization of this country.

Segments of digitalization are happening in the backyard of each ministry, without talking much with the ministry across the fence and without having a plan about who they need to talk to and why.

Dragoș Stanca: If you allow me 30 seconds. Both Janusz Cieszyński from Poland and the former president of Estonia, Mr. Ilves, who is still with us, have made some very clear clarifications. It’s not about technology, it’s about legislation. It’s not about independent teams at the ministry level, it’s about coordination at the government level, with a clear hierarchy and clear responsibilities. It’s not about asking for trust, but about getting it through the technical setup you do. It’s about culture, about digital education, about showing that things can be done and citizens can benefit from them.

Radu Miruță: Absolutely agree. We shouldn’t be angry with citizens for not consuming. For now, they don’t really have anything to consume.

Dragoș Stanca: Money is not the problem; spending it unnecessarily is the problem, and wasting time and energy is a problem.

Radu Miruță: Imagine that we have 3267 city halls that could potentially pay for the same application 3267 times. Because in the Romanian state there is no library of building blocks that can be maintained and, when someone wants something new, realize that three quarters already exist, and you only purchase that quarter and customize it. This is about making money more efficient.

On the issue of development, yes, Romania lacked a top-down vision. The top-down vision is, first and foremost, in accordance with a plan. What does the high-level design of Romania’s digitalization look like? We don’t know it. We have to create it.

Dragoș Stanca: Exactly. Everyone in the private sector was excited about the idea of ​​a “one-day company”. Ok, and what does that one-day company integrate into?

Radu Miruță: You know, that one has advanced. It’s not ready yet. One-day company takes more than one day to make. But we haven’t given up on it and I hope we’ll have good news soon.

I come back to what we are doing at the moment. The discussion, in a way, is that there must be a technical team working on the digitalization architecture of this country. After that — I have no authority to ask a fellow minister to implement what I see, from that diagram, that needs to be done.

Exactly as the President said: I see the same problem in Estonia. The political decision must go through the Prime Minister’s Office, which should simply impose the piece of architecture assigned to the respective ministry.

This is where we started. This is where we started: we are technically working on outlining this digitalization architecture; the second stage is, with your request, to look at it from an external angle to the government — of course there can still be things to improve — after which we move on to the political enforcement, which should happen through the Prime Minister’s Office.

And yes, it is a challenge to show citizens that it is in everyone’s interest to go and use it. I will give you just one example and I will give my colleagues the microphone.

I am sitting in Târgu-Jiu across from a bank, and my mother was going to that bank with the children and they were standing in line. There was a robot next to it. Almost no one was using it, but the line was getting longer and longer. When they saw that they were starting to have work, they started going to the robot to press buttons. “I don’t know what to do, I don’t know what’s going on there.” They saw that it was very easy and that it was happening.

It is our duty, as a government, to put some applications on the table that citizens can use not to contribute to digitalization, but to feel that it is in their interest to do so.

There is only one more problem: we don’t have much fuel to generate content. We can’t talk about artificial intelligence, which means a microprocessor’s ability to control the instructions of other microprocessors, which — in turn — what do they do? They manage content.

We don’t have much content. We can’t make an automated pension recalculation software until we have the elements from the work book taken over in a digital format. At the Ministry of Digitalization, I just came from a meeting where I was told that there are 9.2 km of archives.

Dragoș Stanca: There are colleagues from the private sector who take the state data and organize them and then sell them on. 60 billion is coming, if we’re lucky, from the PNRR for digitalization. Are we prepared to spend it properly or will we have some more traumas, like Romania, in the future, if we don’t do — I don’t know — what do we need? An agreement from Snagov, in which all parties should align? What is the perspective from the ministry you lead, Mr. Pîslaru? With the request once again: you, if you have to leave someday, ask for the floor for a few ideas.

Dragoș Pîslaru: I will have a brief intervention on this subject. First of all, digitalization is not an end in itself. So this is a very clear thing. It serves some objectives. Objectives that, indeed, are related, for example, to efficiency: efficiency in the public service, efficiency in the administration, efficiency in the relationship with the citizen and, obviously, this efficiency is translated into time and costs. These are the main elements.

However, it is certain that it is in vain to digitalize, for example, some processes that are not optimized. I will give you an example: in the case of the PNRR there are six IT applications that have been started and are used — one piece for each element related to the PNRR. There are six. Initially, in 2021, there was the idea of ​​creating an integrated IT system for the PNRR as well, and the decision was that, if it is still delegated to each of the line ministries, there is no longer a need for an integrated application, such as the one on Cohesion, the famous SMIS on Cohesion.

And that decision was made, paradoxically, on the idea that “it’s easier this way”. So “it’s easier this way”. And it ended up with six disparate applications, which, in the end, at the level of 2025, in June, led us to the fact that we did not have any kind of unitary management tool for the PNRR, so that we would know which projects are, who is doing what, what is being done and what is the implementation stage.

There was one that quantifies some payments, another that quantifies conflicts of interest and double financing, another that quantifies the submission of projects for the Ministry of Investments and European Projects and so on. Six.

What I’m trying to say is that we are discussing here, first of all, the element related to good management, management. So in order to be able to have digitalization, you first of all need what is also called in the private sector the part of business analyst and to be able, indeed, to have some coherent processes.

Dragoș Stanca: Business intelligence.

Dragoș Pîslaru: Business intelligence, business analyst, those who can define what you want to digitize. From my point of view, the idea of ​​discussing good process management is part of the general effort of public administration to try to permanently streamline its activity.

We are, many times, in administration, with dependency on the slope: if a certain system appeared at a certain point, people continue to work in that system.

Dragoș Pîslaru: And there is a curve. The system appears, at first efficiency is gained up to a certain point, after which, practically, nothing is gained. And after that, resistance to change appears. These are, theoretically, the main elements.

What I think is needed at this moment, in addition to what has already been pointed out: the general overview, understanding what the data economy means and how data is used, overcoming institutional barriers. Every institution will have two things that come inherently, let’s say, from the institutional motivation.

One: to have discretion over digitalization decisions, meaning to be able to do their own things in-house or with whoever they want, through acquisition.
Dragoș Stanca: Again, digitalization for the needs of the institution, not for our needs.
Dragoș Pîslaru: Exactly. So that’s the first temptation. Well, there’s also the subsidiary temptation to manage budgets, but I’m not going to go there — I think everyone in this room understands what I’m referring to.

But another thing that seems very important to me is the idea of ​​keeping, for example, your own data only “at home”. This is something I notice. And I look — there’s the president of the ADR here. Whereas we had the idea of ​​doing a cloud, now we have several clouds. Given that you want to do something once, similar things appear everywhere afterwards.

And then, given that this resistance is a resistance, how should I say… that should not necessarily be condemned, but you have to somehow, when you want to come up with a vision of digitalization, know that these institutional barriers exist.

And Mr. President Ilves was right when he said that legislation is needed, because you have to somehow come and force this thing through.

But, be careful: we are talking about Mole Day. There are cycles. And the cycle we are going through now was also — eight years ago there was another cycle in which a government CIO was elected, a big push was also attempted in this area of ​​digitalization and, after that, the reform disappeared into thin air.

Dragoș Stanca: I was saying this morning that we see, from Tallinn to Ciugud, that both the consistency, the stability, and the coherence of a decision are important, otherwise nothing happens.

Dragoș Pîslaru: You will not be able, in an administration that changes ministers every six months, to do… It is something that has to do with the way of building coalitions. I think we will have coalitions for a long time from now on and the idea of ​​understanding that we have to work with each other for a greater interest than the short-term one is very important. And that does not depend so much on society.

Dragoș Stanca: Iulian Stanciu, from the private sector, as a successful entrepreneur, with even more difficult periods in the history of the last 30 years — how do you see things? And how much knowledge do you think can be exported and made available to the state from the pains and projects that you have done until you reach the point where you are today?

Iulian Stanciu: I would start with the idea of ​​building this think tank. Ela and nine other people are with her. We created it a year or so ago, with expertise from the private sector, academia, and the public sector. And we realized — perhaps out of frustration, when we saw how high private services had reached and the slow speed at which public services were developing — that we could contribute in some way. We looked for a while for how we could do this and we found this type of think tank organization, which is more like an action tank at the moment, because we set out to start doing things. It is one of the reasons why we are here today and thank you.

Then I said: let’s find external knowledge points that can come and tell us where we are. We have this Digital Nation report. They, as an idea, have worked with over 40 governments around the world and helped — from Moldova to Ukraine and other larger countries, including from other continents — to build a digital transformation strategy, starting from the needs of each country.

So it is not a copy-paste of the Estonian model, but a customization based on some principles, know-how and lessons learned. Then adapted to each country. This report, and implicitly the grade, were not made to give a bad grade, but to have a base from which you can build. Because any strategy and any plan built behind the strategy starts from a base that you have to recognize — you have to know roughly where you are and what you are building on.

And that is where this report started. It has 12 axes; digitalization is made up of several things. I would like to highlight two issues. One is the interaction with the citizen — and, in fact, digitalization itself cannot be an objective, as Mr. Pîslaru said; it helps with other objectives. We are talking about the quality of public services. We see that people want it in education, in health, in interactions with officials, in taxes and so on. There are many things that can be put into this super-application.

There is content; it just needs to be made usable. And it would be a quick-win in defining some standards and putting this content — as the former Polish minister said — into a super-application, with a very good design, using what we have.

Dragoș Stanca: So that people can see that there is clear applicability.
Iulian Stanciu: From what I understand, there was something — and they did it, it didn’t work very well. I mean, they wired it up, they knotted the databases a little, they let it go, it worked and they moved on.
Dragoș Stanca: Done is better than perfect, like in the world of startups.

Iulian Stanciu: Exactly. So that would be one direction: digital public services. The other is efficiency. And here I give you an example from the private sector.

In the eMAG warehouse, 15 years ago, product picking was done with paper. You would go with paper, print out what the customer ordered and search the warehouse. We have now reached a warehouse that is automated to a very high percentage, with robots, with artificial intelligence. What did we do? What were the steps? Once we decided — not to digitize or automate — but we decided that we wanted to deliver faster, we wanted the delivery to have very good quality. We measured where we are and where we want to get to. And we wanted to reduce the cost per operation, the cost per storage, the cost per delivery.

And we succeeded, keeping the same number of people. We have approximately 1,000 people. In the last eight years, we have increased the volumes about seven times. With the same number of people. People are much more productive. So this is a myth: that civil servants will be fired.

Dragoș Stanca: Mr. Nazare, tell us the things that you think are good to remember, so that we can re-examine them next year at the Digital Governance Summit. And give us some hope. AI, digitalized ANAF, more optimistic things. Can we hope? And when should we ask you again how things are going at home?

Alexandru Nazare: I would like to start by giving you some very good news, because it will happen today, this afternoon, when the European Commission will publish the analysis related to the autumn semester, in which Romania appears “compliant”. “Compliant” member states, “non-compliant” member states. This time we are “compliant”, which is no small thing at all; it is a positive assessment by the European Commission. We have the certification that we are no longer in danger of losing European funds. And this is due to these four months of efforts, all the documents we submitted and the measures we took.

And it has a lot to do with digitalization, because we couldn’t plan for 2026 while sitting with this fear, this “sword” over our heads — that we could lose funds or that commitments could be suspended. The digitalization program is very ambitious. We have an application that will build practically the entire public budget in an electronic format — the next generation budget. Right in the room is one of the creators of the company that is working on this application. We are very focused on completing everything in a timely manner, so that we can upload the 2026 budget in electronic format.

From 2026 we will have a single pre-filled declaration — a smart form in which we will be able to evaluate data that has already been entered automatically. It will be much easier: the user will be able to tick the data they consider correct and will be able to fill in where necessary. It is a very important declaration, addressed to a very large number of Romanians, who will benefit from this starting in March next year. The consultation period is still open; ANAF is accepting suggestions until the end of this month.

We also have an application that will scan tax receipts — it’s called AiBon — which we will launch as soon as possible. It is available in all formats. Basically, any citizen will be able to scan a receipt, and when we have the flag raised in the cloud, we will know whether that cash register is valid or not. We will have these flags coming from the population and I think it is a very good signal for tax compliance. We did not want to rush with this application precisely to have a formula as advanced as possible, without surprises; it will be launched as soon as possible in pilot format by the Ministry of Finance. It is not the only application — I have given you just a few examples of the over 80 projects that the Ministry of Finance and ANAF are managing, related to digitalization; 55-56 are developed with money from the PNRR.

Dragoș Stanca: Is there any good news for entrepreneurs and citizens? Apps and things that will make their lives easier, not just track them or scare them? An app to make the criteria that ANAF uses transparent? Something?

Alexandru Nazare: ANAF will publish, starting in 2026, the performance criteria. This has already been agreed with the Commission. It is a very important signal and I believe it will send a strong internal message within ANAF. The commitment is made; the president of ANAF has already announced that these criteria will be public, will be put out for consultation as soon as possible, and from 2026 it will be the first time that ANAF does this.

ANAF will also start publishing quarterly collection targets — very important, because it has not happened before. These are important steps for making ANAF transparent. We will not succeed perfectly from the first moment, but I mention these steps because they indicate a trend. And I think the trend is a good one.

Dragoș Stanca: In all studies and analyses, the same element appears: trust. People must trust that ANAF and any institution operates in good faith and in the public interest, not according to other criteria. I think transparency and efficient communication through digitalization are essential.

Dragoș Stanca: Ela, you are in a position that we always envy: you have access to things before us, to the newest launches and experiments of Alphabet, to fascinating products. Even President Dan said this morning that he uses Gemini — congratulations on the adoption. I want to ask you how it is seen from your position, having the activity in Romania, with all the digital problems here, but also having access to what is happening “beyond”. And what examples of success are there, if any, from public-private implementations in partnership with Alphabet or other Big Tech companies, in states perhaps more relaxed in these collaborations? How is it going in Romania, in general?

Elisabeta Moraru: I would start by mentioning something that has been said several times today: the products we bring to users are created starting from a need. We do not launch them until we identify that need. If we talk about digitalization and the transformation of Romania for its economic survival, I would emphasize this element: we need to track the “life events” of the citizen and transform digitalization into a tool that serves these events.

Elisabeta Moraru: Then, I would point out that Alphabet is known for prototyping and innovation: “let’s try, let’s make mistakes if necessary, but let’s try something”. And this was said today. We have discussed this many times on the Edge board: do we need a perfect application, which solves all the UX points, or do we need a product that becomes better through the use of the citizen?

Elisabeta Moraru: And I would go further, because I also have to talk about education. If we need something, we need — I can also call it a “pact” — a national agreement on digital literacy. We see school dropout, we see the loss of STEM skills, and companies’ decisions to invest depend a lot on these market indicators.

Dragoș Stanca: We have another major problem, also part of digital education: disinformation. We cannot strategically defend ourselves against the wave of disinformation if we do not understand how algorithmic media works, what microtargeting means, how a database used with malice works.

Elisabeta Moraru: I would add here Romania’s position in DESI, the index that we follow every year with the hope of not remaining in last place. However, there are examples that work — and allow me to maintain the optimistic tone with which I opened the panel. We have had a partnership with the National Institute of Administration for almost a year, in which civil servants voluntarily come to our courses, both on digital skills for AI and on cybersecurity.

Elisabeta Moraru: The examples continue. Last week, my colleagues from the Senate asked us to repeat the trainings. I think such examples are valuable. And, if you will allow me an example that is very dear to me: the project with the Ministry of Environment. It cost less than 50,000 dollars, but the benefits for the state, through taxes recovered from the reduction of illegal timber shipments, were major. We are talking about fractions of a second in which artificial intelligence identifies fake photos and notifies the system. It was a project done in a few months, and otherwise it could not have been done — there were not enough people who could do this analysis manually.

Dragoș Stanca: Dragoș Pîslaru, we also have concrete examples of digitalization. And Radu Miruță. I have a dilemma that comes from the entrepreneurial media. I would like us to answer this as well: to what extent does Romania allow itself — or why does it not dare — to have more unconventional approaches? For example, to create regulation-free zones for start-ups or to create an ecosystem where we no longer drive away entrepreneurs who fear excessive regulation. Can we come actively and proactively, without waiting for the example of Poland, Estonia, Spain? Can we take the initiative? Or is it too early?

Dragoș Pîslaru: I will try to answer the question and also mention what I want to say. There is the discussion about the country plan: the big, strategic plan, in which the whole country will become a digital paradise. But there are things at hand — low-hanging fruits. I think that, just as it is important to discuss the strategy and how we want to get from the last place in DESI to the top of the European Union, we must also be concerned with creating concrete demonstrations, attracting the public administration in partnership with the private sector and showing that things are useful.

Dragoș Pîslaru: I want to take two or three minutes to present the problem and the solution. The arrival of this government takes place in June 2025, given that the PNRR has been under review for a year. I did not know the exact situation, the European Commission did not want to listen to us anymore, because Romania had not respected its commitments regarding reforms and investments. There were delays that could no longer be fixed.

Dragoș Pîslaru: In these conditions, after trying to see what was left, we cleaned up the overcontracting, prioritized and tried to clarify the reform agenda. We found the thing mentioned at the beginning: we didn’t have a management tool, we didn’t have the list of PNRR projects.

Dragoș Pîslaru: For any good manager or manager who manages billions, it’s obvious that they need to know where the money is going: what projects exist, where they are, what the status is and how you monitor them. We, after five years in which we spent half of the amount, still had ten months for the other half — approximately 10 billion.

Dragoș Pîslaru: So we needed a management tool — the need, not the goal itself. We needed an indexed database, with a unique code for each project. That’s how the dashboard came about. It’s not a PR exercise; the beauty of digitalization is that you solve several problems simultaneously.

Dragoș Pîslaru: We see the indexed base, we see the 21 billion, we see that 10.7 were collected and almost 9 were paid. We also have the geolocation of the projects — we can see where they are placed. If we take Cluj County, we can see all the localities where there are PNRR projects. If we select Apahida, we see the nine projects and what they represent: school furniture, support, etc.

Dragoș Pîslaru: This means that anyone in Apahida clearly sees what is happening in the community. I started from the institutional need to understand what I have to implement. Between the columns we see the value of payments and the technical progress — how we are moving towards 100%.

Dragoș Pîslaru: For me, it is a management tool that will be reported monthly, now ten times until the end. And this data can also be viewed on a progress map over time. I have weekly instances with updated data and I can see the evolution from one month to the next or even weekly.

Dragoș Stanca: I think the key is that these applications are not suspended here and there, that there is interoperability, that there is coordination. How do you see these efforts?

Dragoș Pîslaru: What I think and what I expect to happen is that, once you set a standard, you create pressure from society that from now on all data related to European funds — and pay attention, I have the same type of dashboard for cohesion — be presented in a unified way, with the information from the integrated management system: the project description, the data about the project and so on.

Dragoș Pîslaru: Here, in two months or so, I barely managed to index them all and set a status. But, since we are talking about digitalization, understand how many rabbits we are shooting simultaneously. For example: if I select only the digital transformation projects in public administration, I have a button that I can press and it shows me the status of all the projects — 583 projects; 1.9 billion strictly in the public sector.

Dragoș Pîslaru: If I want something else, I select all the projects that include digitalization elements throughout the country. And we notice that the PNRR is a “Christmas tree”, with everything: SME digitalization, medical office digitalization, various types of projects, including Flex and the government cloud.

Dragoș Stanca: Any initiative that makes data transparent and provides data is welcome.

Dragoș Pîslaru: To close: the first goal was management and good governance — so that I could finish the projects. The second goal is transparency as a value. The third goal is to mobilize the entire society. My expectation is that you look at the stages, ask why something is not working, what can go faster, how can projects be accelerated — including digitalization ones.

Dragoș Pîslaru: And I conclude with an important thing: this application was made almost in-house, with support for analysis and data preparation from the World Bank. But, all in all, in two and a half months — from nothing — we had the application. What I am trying to say is that, in addition to grand visions, in any institution it is possible to do such things. And I am convinced that one of the projects we share, related to RPA and artificial intelligence in public administration — which Minister Miruță coordinates through ADR — takes us exactly into the area of ​​“what we can implement in the short term”.

Dragoș Pîslaru: I think it is very important, in addition to the public-private vision, to start doing what can be done. For example, in the ministry I coordinate, electronic signature and electronic documents coexist with the classic paper signature folder. The institutional problem is that the electronic system is not streamlined: it takes me longer to sign electronically than on paper — which obviously makes the process more difficult.

Dragoș Pîslaru: Last idea: the period 2028–2034 is an enormous potential. This is the first time that Romania has access to a large amount of money — 60 billion, plus probably another 10 from the competitiveness fund. And from these 70 billion, Romania is no longer forced to work on rigid tracks, with three types of funds and dozens of separate programs.

Dragoș Pîslaru: We have a kind of PNRR that is three times larger, which needs to be managed. And the approach that I am trying to build together with my colleagues in the government and in partnership with society is that, for the first time, for every euro that we take from European funds, we also put one euro from the state budget. Let’s have a multi-annual programming that allows us to look not at 70 billion, but at 140.

Dragoș Stanca: Well, a lot of money is coming, we have a minister and a ministry of Economy, Entrepreneurship, Tourism and Digitalization. We, from the private sector, want to see that digitalization is not “cowards, others” among the economy, tourism and the rest, and that this money that comes will be used strategically and wisely. Mr. Miruță, are you open to the idea of ​​isolating digitalization — in the sense of raising it in importance higher, above all ministries — because all the recommendations we have lead in that direction.

Dragoș Stanca: Also, the report contains some critical observations regarding the role and usefulness of ADR. What is your vision and opinion?

Radu Miruță: To give you a taste: my doctorate is not in economics, it is in software-telecommunications. So it is somehow “in the soul” and it is the main reason why I got involved in this government team. I received, in addition to digitalization, other fields. To encourage Minister Pîslaru a little: you should know that here at the Ministry of Digitalization, it is not that it takes longer to sign electronically — but we cannot sign electronically at all. So we do not have such a functional software, for now.

Radu Miruță: Starting from this: it is not only that I am passionate about digitalization, but my conviction is that it is becoming increasingly obvious that these things help everyone. I was telling Mr. Pîslaru that, if we raise Romania’s digitalization to the European Union average — by the way, that DESI score — we would increase the gross domestic product, some say, by about 7%. I think they would have a lot of room for maneuver now when designing the budget.

And there is no other section through which, no matter who is in government, they can achieve GDP growth in a short period of time more efficiently than by investing in digitalization. So, if we forget that “we don’t have money”, then let’s take a deep breath and put more energy into digitalization.

Radu Miruță: Now, you won’t see me complaining that one thing or another is missing and because of that we can’t start projects. I worked a lot and well in an office at the faculty and I look up to Professor Rughiniș with respect, constantly creating a perfect digitalization architecture. We make some big blocks and start delivering with what we have.

Radu Miruță: As we start delivering, we realize that more and more “sessions” appear between those blocks. As these “sessions” appear, we will realize that more content is needed. Realizing this, ministries will realize that they need to digitize content from the “dust” side, not the “electron” side.

Radu Miruță: With these things happening, citizens will start to interact more efficiently. Companies will understand: “Welcome to us, you asked us to form a common front to support the tax increase, but you are giving us a big breath of oxygen so that we can interact more honestly with the Romanian state.”

That digitalization still has some parameters: digitalization does not have a phone number to call “receive this file for me too, it helps me to get ahead of the competition.” Digitalization also works at night. Companies are starting to run their own business more efficiently, for which the government is often an obstacle.

Radu Miruță: So let’s add some color to this area, let’s see where we’re going, while preserving: let’s have a roadmap with the architecture of digitalization. And we start pushing some projects — small ones for now — but projects that “fill” a little. We’re putting a picture on the wall, even if we don’t have the bed yet.

Dragoș Stanca: Should digitalization be taken to a higher level or should it remain a ministry?

Radu Miruță: The political decision regarding the follow-up of technical decisions must be taken to a higher level. From my point of view, the technical decision must remain in a technical ministry; the political decision must be lifted. The reason is simple: the Minister of Digitalization is equivalent to the Minister of European Funds and, beyond the correct and respectful relationship with Mr. Pîslaru, I cannot order Mr. Pîslaru to do something as a priority in the ministry.

It’s a little frustrating, because I am… and so is ours. I, the Minister of Digitalization, but my ability to impose digitalization decisions in other ministries is limited. And then the chancellery is working on this concept in which the technical part is here, and the political implementation part is somewhere that spreads across all ministries.

Dragoș Stanca: I’m going to ask you to summarize and give the key messages that you think those who follow us on the livestream and those who are, here, in such large numbers in the room should hear. Starting perhaps with Iulian: conclusions, messages, comments. If you had watched this discussion on YouTube, what comment would you have left me?

Iulian Stanciu: I think that one obstacle we have in the way of digitalization is the cultural orientation, at the level of public administration, towards “hunting failure”. And the former Polish minister said it: if you want to innovate, if you want to move quickly, you will inevitably make mistakes. And we see this too, at the level of companies.

And maybe it would be good to open this discussion: what does a mistake made out of the desire to do good mean and what does a mistake made with the intention of doing harm mean? How can they be differentiated and how can we, easily, talk culturally about innovation and speed.

A second thing, mentioned very often, is the orientation of services towards the customer. And here is something that companies have done and that is how they have built products: you come up with a product starting from the most important needs of the customer, made usable and useful, which quickly responds to needs.

Dragoș Stanca: The mentality of the state: the citizen is the customer.

Iulian Stanciu: Exactly. And we see the citizens… And then, we see the very big opportunity, because — as, again, the Polish minister said — when you have such a high degree of distrust, when you do something, people come behind you.

And, of course, communication must also be improved, because… things happen, they happen every day. As Minister Nazare said, today something is being announced that could be important for the well-being of all Romanians in the longer term. It’s just that it will move to “and others”, because the prioritization of news will be different.

And I would also see a consequence of the development of this digital infrastructure: Romania’s digital economy. As an idea, only IT&C plus e-commerce currently represents 12% of GDP. In the IT&C area, we have a large share of, let’s say, an IT “loan”. There is a huge opportunity there to build Romanian products and intellectual property.

As an idea, according to a study by Roland Berger, eMAG alone contributes 0.5% to Romania’s GDP — the entire eMAG ecosystem. For every 10,000 people employed in eMAG, there are seven more employees at partners.

Dragoș Stanca: I would have liked to have had time to talk about true patriotism and nationalism, for example how we better protect our local players.

Iulian Stanciu: The story of the Estonian President about the 10 unicorns in Estonia. So what would it mean to have 5 companies like eMAG or 10 companies like eMAG in Romania? It would mean an increase in GDP, an increase in wages, an increase in welfare, which would ultimately be reflected horizontally and vertically in the Romanian economy.

Dragoș Stanca: Ela?

Elisabeta Moraru: If you were to close your eyes and think about Romania 20… Robi, I’ll say 35 this time — and you would see a Romania in which 80% of the population, that is, 8 out of 10 Romanians, have digital skills, imagine what our society would be like. If in 2035 eight out of ten companies could be founded in 24 hours, imagine how many companies would no longer be founded in other countries and would come here.

If you were to imagine a state, in 2035, in partnership with local and global players, that has cybersecurity ensured, that has partnerships to develop structures that then go further — as our colleagues in Ukraine or Moldova are doing today — sandboxes, as our colleagues in Moldova are doing, what would that country be like?

Dragoș Stanca: I would move there. Mr. Miruță, conclusions, key messages?

Radu Miruță: To answer Ela: everyone should understand that digitalization is a priority. Both civil society and the political environment. And yes — let’s have the courage to have performance indicators in each state institution, in relation to the budget they receive from the state budget, associated with the degree of digitalization.

It’s not enough to just talk about it. Digitalization, as long as it is a tool that brings efficiency in absolutely all areas, is a tool that we must support, even if it is not in our own backyard. Yes, there is a lot of room. And yes, Romania, paradoxically, lacks fewer things to do digitalization than other countries — we have some of the best software engineering schools, attractive salaries, an area where you can build an architecture almost from scratch, we have many services that can be digitalized and, during this period, we also have money from the PNRR to financially support digitalization projects.

There is no longer an excuse to say that “we have nothing to do”. We have something to do. I am no longer in opposition to saying “let the government do it”. The government has something to do. It remains that, I don’t know, in 2035 — as Ela said — we measure how these things were done, who made the decisions and how much was delivered. Otherwise, all that remains is stories about digitalization.

Dragoș Pîslaru: I am really not in a position to close my eyes and dream anymore. I think that what I was telling you earlier — and because of time I did not have time to finish — must be understood very clearly.

We can use the seven-year anchor of European budgetary programming to finally have that country plan that will deliver the things we are discussing. It is no longer a question of “how nice it would be if”. For one, what I am doing now: I am working to gain enough credibility through the good implementation of the money we have, to propose to society, to propose to all of you that — from January, February — we start programming 2028–34 in a completely different way compared to before.

One: we no longer keep national money separate from European money. We no longer have any reason to create national programs that compete with European ones, fragmenting things. Two: we don’t need to wait for decisions from Europe regarding the negotiation, because we have the plan that we need to make. Three: multiannual programming — if we were to do it alone, in Romania, we wouldn’t do it; but we have the European horizon of seven years.

We have all the ingredients to, together, from February, start making a country plan with an economic sectoral component, the digital sector, and another component — a list of major challenges: demography, human capital, technology — in which the digital transformation of society will be the central theme.

We are not discussing a theoretical exercise. It is something we can start tomorrow. That is, in fact, the issue. So instead of dreaming or closing our eyes, I want us to keep them wide open and get to work. Thank you very much!

Dragoș Stanca: That is exactly right, because the discussion has only just begun. It is a rather symbolic initiative, which — with the financial effort of the Edge Institute — we started today, but it is only a beginning. The Edge Institute has not even been active for a year. We hope that this platform for conversation and knowledge will contribute to changing Romania for the better.

We will do everything we can and we are open to all other responsible and fair actors in society. We will see each other — I hope — earlier than this time next year. We will do more podcasts, discussions, reports; we will synthesize all the good ideas from this meeting, we will take all your reactions… I was looking at my phone because I saw how the messages and questions flow; we apologize, but the day only has 12 hours.

We will also process these feedbacks, we will transmit them, we will do everything we can and we hope that it will be the beginning of a digital Romania as we all want it.