Secretary of State with the Foreign Affairs Ministry Luca Niculescu said on Friday that three steps still need to be completed in Romania's accession process to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), noting that the latest endorsement received on Friday is one 'of the most complex'.

'The week could not have ended better. Today we were informed that we received the 22nd formal opinion for OECD accession (after yesterday we received the 21st - let me remind you that there are 25 in total). Today's opinion comes from the OECD Public Governance Committee, one of the most complex. In fact, each committee has its own complexity, but this one is particularly so, even if we consider only the numerous institutions involved,' Luca Niculescu wrote on Friday on Facebook.

Behind this result lies extensive teamwork, says the coordinator of Romania's OECD accession process.

'The coordinator was the Government's Secretariat General. The Justice Ministry played a major role, alongside the Ministry of the Interior, the Finance Ministry, the Labour Ministry, the Ministry of Economy, and the Development Ministry. Not only ministries are involved, but also numerous agencies and other institutions, as well as Parliament, which adopted several essential laws. Particularly important were the law on the Single Transparency Registry, which makes the way public decisions are taken more transparent, and the law on 'pantouflage' or 'revolving doors', a mechanism that prevents conflicts of interest when moving from the public to the private sector. And at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, our role was to keep this dialogue moving - both among institutions in the country and with the OECD Secretariat and the Organization's member states. Sincere thanks to all those involved in achieving this very good result! We still have three steps to go,' Niculescu said. AGERPRES (RO - writing by: Georgiana Tanasescu; EN - writing by: Simona Klodnischi)