“In Italy, there are more than a million Romanians in the diaspora. You don’t even know, like the Prime Minister, whether it’s joy or not,” said Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu in Rome on Wednesday at a meeting with representatives of the Romanian community in Italy. In the context of the labor crisis in Romania, Colaku told them that in some areas, if he returned to the country, he would earn even better than in Italy, but he admitted that we have debts in public services, education and health care.

During a working visit to Rome, Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu met Wednesday with the city’s mayor Roberto Gualtieri and representatives of the Romanian community in Italy.

• “In Italy, there are more than a million Romanians in the diaspora. You don’t even know, as a prime minister, whether it’s a joy or not. I know the average age is 34-35 years. In fact and by law, all of Romania’s added value, a third of it that came out of Romania, is now in Italy.
• Even though we have the largest number of active workers in Romania, over 5.7 million Romanians, we definitely have a labor crisis.
• Now, after 30 years, we are talking and trying as politicians – and I tell you sincerely, I am not one of those politicians who are looking for the culprits for why it turned out here. I believe that our duty is not to find the guilty.
• The simplest, categorically, that the politicians are to blame. I think we will have to find a solution,” said Cholaku.

How Čolaku wants to convince Romanians from Italy to return to the country. Large debts: education, health care and communal services

The Prime Minister stated that European funds, money and reforms from the PNRR are the last train of Romania that can bring our way of administrative functioning to the same as in other European states.

• “Romania must not lose a single moment and under no circumstances this last train. This is the first time that we say and see that the Moldovan highway will be completed, we all know that the largest migration outflow in the last 25 years was from the territory of Moldova. This is the first time that we try to develop the historical regions of Romania in the same balance.
• I strongly believe that in some fields, if you go back to Romania, you will earn as much or maybe more than you earn in Italy.
• But I am also aware of the fact that we are still lagging behind in the field of public services in Romania, in terms of health care, in terms of the education system,” said the Prime Minister.

In this sense, Çolaku emphasized that this year 4.1% of GDP has been allocated to education, money that will go to raise teachers’ salaries, as well as billions of euros, approximately 3 billion euros of infrastructure investments.

• “This is the first time that we are trying to simultaneously train more highly paid teachers and develop infrastructure.
• This is the first time that we are trying to apply a new approach to the health care system, starting with digitalization, but at the same time to find a balance between the public system, between the private system, between salaries, but especially in investments, which as in the current financial year, and through PNRR will amount to more than 5 billion euros,” Çolaku also stated.

Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu is on a working visit to Rome on Wednesday and Thursday, where he will take part in the third joint meeting of the governments of Romania and Italy, organized 13 years after the previous intergovernmental summit. Čolaku will also receive an audience with Pope Francis in the Vatican.

• Read: Marcel Cholaku will meet with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and Pope Francis / The head of the government will visit Italy on Wednesday