In an interview to Digi 24, the U.S. ambassador to Romania, Hans Klemm said he had been very inspired by what he saw in early November this year. “The Colectiv club fire was an enormous tragedy, it resembles to what happened in USA about 12 years ago. What happened after the event was very inspiring. It’s the intention of the USA to fully support president Iohannis and PM Ciolos and his government.We’ll remain a strong ally, partner and friend of Romania, he said.
“I think there is a great hope now that Romania will be on a new, more positive direction, but that will take time and will also take the support of the Romanian people. We remain hopeful that the Romanian institutions will deliver the Romanian people what the country asked for in November,” he further stated.
Asked about his busy agenda here in Romania, the American ambassador explained that he has many things to catch up with.
“It’s a lot of catch up with, as it was a huge gap between my arrival here and the departure of my predecessor, Mark Gitenstein, two years and a half. It’s part of the motivation for trying to meet as many Romanians I can, as quickly I can. I begin to explore Romania outside Bucharest and also to engage with the Romanian leadership to find opportunities, to explain the priorities of the USA in the partnership with Romania,” Hans Klemm pointed out.
Questionned what are Romania’s obstacles 26 years after the Revolution that led to the fall of the communist regime, Hans Klemm said that the developments that have occurred in Romania since the events of December 1989 “are every positive, to one extent.”
“Romania is now a member of NATO, enjoys a very strong strategic partnership with the United States, a partnership that I’m committed to further consolidate and expand. And Romania is a member of EU (…) But it does has obstacles it needs to overcome in order to further strengthen its role in the international affairs. The first goal is that Romania needs to find a way to sustainably grow its economy. And the obstacle here is corruption. The U.S has very strongly supported Romania’s fight against corruption. I think significant work in that direction has been accomplished in the past years.
Other obstacles include infrastructure. We’ve done some travelling in Romania. Some of the roads are excellent, they remind me of Germany, but there is much work to be done on order to fully connect Romania’s road, rail and energy infrastructure with the rest of Europe,” the American envoys believes.
At the same time, in his view, the efficient use of the resources made available in Romania through the European Union funds is also critical.
“Listening to the Romanian businessmen and the American ones, another field that deserves attention, and the Cioloș Government is paying attention to it, is the public administration, to ensure that Romanian public service is efficient, responsive, transparent in the use of the resources made available from the Romanian tax payers as well as from the EU in the most effective way possible,” Klemm concluded.