The Global Romania was born

I read an article that estimates the number of Romanians who leave abroad, i.e. are emigrants from Romania. According to the international definition, an emigrant is a Romanian who left the country and lives in another country for at least 12 months.

This number cannot be known exactly but is approximately 3.5 Million. The population of Romania is approximately 20 Million, so this means that that 17.5 percent of Romanians left their native country. This number is pretty high, many people talk about a brain drain, big demographical problems due to the fact that most of the people who left are young and this creates serious work force problems, many Romanian businesses being forced to import laborers from other countries.

( The original article can be seen -HERE – in Romanian)

I think a lot about this problem, but I see a real positive impact of this phenomenon, despite the general negative connotation associated with it.

Romania was an isolated country during the Communist times. Due to the fact that the population was not allowed to travel to the developed world, not to many Romanians traveled abroad. After the 1989 Revolution, the Romanians started to travel, they all got passports and are accepted to travel in a lot of countries without requiring visas. The low cost airlines allow Romanians to fly anywhere in Europe for very low cost so the travel became a commodity. This ease of travel, and the membership in EU allowed many Romanians to go and work abroad. Like any other countries, Romanian has a significant number of elite scientists, business people, doctors, engineers, entrepreneurs. Due to the lack of ecosystems in order to nurture creativity and scientific research, many of this elite lives abroad.

Because of the ease of moving from one country to another, the democratic system of Romania and the EU membership, many of these expats cannot stop thinking about their home country and maintain close ties with the homeland. (Note: In the Communist times if you left your country it was very difficult to get back without having to suffer serious repercussions.)

Romania has some serious challenges related to:

·        the instability of the political system

·        corruption

·        deficient health care system

·        problematic education,

·        lack of infrastructure (freeways)

Due to these challenges, the physical repatriation of Romanians does not happen in large numbers. But in my opinion, there is a growing trend for these numbers. With the help of some Romanian Organizations like #Repatriot for example and also with some future Government repatriation policies, this phenomenon will increase substantially.

These 3.5 million Romanian Diaspora created the Global Romania. The elite that left, together with the hard working Romanian population abroad created a Global Romania. No matter where you go, including here in the US, when you say that you are from Romania, the people that you talk to will tell you they know somebody from there, they worked with somebody or they visited Romania. By the way tourism is another important factor of the Globalization of Romania.

And beside the physical repatriation of the Diaspora, there are other forms of Repatriation that are happening and have a continuous growing trend:

a)      Financial Repatriation – The Romanians who live abroad send back every year lots of money or invest in Romanian businesses that they start.. According to an article from Romanian Insider this number is huge:

“According to World Bank, in the 11 years since Romania joined the EU, Romanians living and working abroad have sent some USD 24.5 billion into the country, through banks or money transfer services. However, the actual amounts may be even higher. According to Eurostat, Romanians abroad sent EUR 31.7 billion to the country between 2007 and 2017. In the same period, Romania received net EU funds worth EUR 30.4 billion.” https://www.romania-insider.com/money-romanians-abroad-send-country

So the Financial Repatriation is huge and exceeds the European net funds received in the same time period.

b)     Know How Repatriation

Many of the very successful Romanians abroad are bringing back their Know How to Romania. This is happening through the activity of the world renown scientists who left Romania and now are creating different programs at their Alma Mater Universities, helping in the process of reviving of the Romanian Scientific Research. The Romanian Research is now in a very bad shape, due to the lack of interest of all the Governments that existed after the Revolution.

The Romanian Universities didn’t learn yet how to exploit the International Alumni Networks in order to involve all the Alumni who live abroad to repatriate the know how. The Business Know How is also brought back by expats who invest in Romania by bringing back the accumulated knowledge. But for other simpler things, like tourism, restaurant business, different crafts and activities like construction, agriculture many Romanians who lived abroad can bring back what they learned during their successful activities abroad. You can find amazing restaurants or hotels in Romania ran by people who worked in Italy, France or US.

Successful startups like #UiPath for example where I work, maintain a substantial presence in Romania were it was born. This has a major effect in know how repatriation in this top industry that is automation.

c)      Political Repatriation

I think that the last two elections brought a fundamental change in the interest of the Romanians abroad towards the Romanian politics.

 I think a huge role into these were the events in August 10 2018, when the PSD Government of that time attacked in Bucharest the demonstrators from the Romanian Diaspora violently. This emboldened the Diaspora. This is a positive effect of this horrible event.

All the Romanian citizens who live abroad, can vote in elections. But the past years, the Romanian Authorities didn’t organize these elections in a way to make the access of the Romanians abroad to vote very easy. This changed the last two elections. The impact of the Romanian Diaspora was significant due to the fact that the elections were organized almost perfectly (in my opinion – I was President of a polling station in the SF Bay Area in the last Presidential Elections) and all over the world the access to vote was easy and pleasant. This made possible the Political repatriation of the Diaspora to become reality, they had a major role in the outcome of the elections. Almost 1 Million Romanians abroad voted in the last Presidential Elections.

The Diaspora is represented by 6 representatives in the Romanian Parliament, the current Government proposed to increase this number to 12, which would be a more normal number due to the number of Romanians abroad.

My conclusion is that the negative phenomenon of emigration has this positive effect of making Romania a Global Country. If the situation will improve and if the future Governments will be more normal, the Romanian Diaspora can have a major contribution to the future substantial development of Romania and shorten the path towards becoming one of the most prosperous countries of Europe.

I always have in front of me the example of Ireland, where the Irish Diaspora had a major role in transforming the country in one of the most prosperous countries in the world. We should follow their example.