Luca Niculescu, Romania’s former ambassador to France, has been appointed secretary of state at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs after being recalled from the post last month.

The decision was published on Friday evening in the Official Gazette, according to which Niculescu is going to take the position of Secretary of State responsible for Romania’s accession to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

The OECD started negotiations on Romania’s accession to the organization earlier this year.

The negotiation stage will include a rigorous assessment of our country’s compliance with the Organization’s tools and best practices, which will be carried out by more than 20 OECD technical committees on the basis of a road map that will be developed in the next period.

Who is Luca Niculescu?

Before serving as ambassador to France, Andorra and Monaco, Luca Niculescu was editor-in-chief of RFI Romania, graduated in journalism and received a master’s degree in European journalism from Strasbourg.

He was a correspondent in Romania for France Info, France Inter, France Culture, TV 5 and the daily newspaper Liberation.

Niculescu was removed from office by decree of President Klaus Iohannis on July 11.

“It was a great honor to represent Romania in France for more than six years. Throughout this period, I have worked every day to make the very special relationship between Bucharest and Paris even closer, to make our ties even stronger in all areas. Because, regardless of whether it is about politics, economy, culture, defense, civil society, partnership between localities, there is no field in which our relations are not of great intensity. When it comes to France, “Romanians have the memory of the heart,” as Titulescu said, he said then.

“It was also an honor for me to represent Romania in the Principality of Monaco and the Principality of Andorra. And, apart from bilateral issues, I had a great chance to promote other passionate causes, such as joining the OECD, where the process has started successfully. Or an increasingly strong relationship with the International Organization of La Francophonie,” the former ambassador added last month.