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Romania interested in organizing French-speaking economic forum for Central, Eastern Europe
Minister of Foreign Affairs Lazar Comanescu stated, on Thursday, that Romania is interested in organizing, in 2018, a French-speaking economic forum for Central and Eastern Europe.
"Given Romania's particular interest for La Francophonie from an economic point-of-view, we would be interested in organizing in Bucharest a French-speaking economic forum for Central and Eastern Europe in 2018, the year in which we celebrate 25 years since Romania's accession to the International Organisation of La Francophonie (OIF)," stated Comanescu at the opening ceremony of the Francophone meeting organized on the occasion of the visit to Bucharest of the OIF Secretary General, Michaelle Jean.
Lazar Comanescu showed that Romania's activity within La Francophonie is very rich, due to the cultural and linguistic heritage, which would allow "a privileged link with La Francophonie and the French language."
"Presently, we are doubling our efforts to keep and consolidate our Francophone heritage through education and through encouraging youths to use French more and more as a means to access the labour market and high-end technologies. According to statistics, there are more than one million persons studying French," Comanescu added.
In her turn, Michaelle Jean opined that Romania is an emblematic and a "beacon country" of La Francophonie in Central and Eastern Europe, one of the arguments being that in Romania the French language is "still alive."
"There are two million persons that speak this language and 1.3 million persons that follow French language courses, according to the 2014 report of the French-language Observer. Maybe since 2014 these figures have gone up," said the OIF official.
Referring to the idea of a Francophone economic forum in Romania, Michaelle Jean said that the proposal is "extremely important."
"This allows us to launch some axes of reflection. It is a very good piece of news, because it will allow the region to say what it has to offer and how it stands. We will bring to this conference other actors from the rest of the Francophone space, who will be delighted to explore these mobility possibilities in the purpose of raising the number of partnerships and networks," the Secretary-General of La Francophonie mentioned.