President Iohannis says political pact - not ideal form to implement vision of 'Educated Romania' project

President Klaus Iohannis said on Wednesday that a pact on the 'Educated Romania' project would not be the ideal form to implement the vision of this profoundly overhauling initiative, and that although he is aware that persuading the politicians about the project would require hundreds of consultation rounds, he is braced for that.

"Eventually, everyone will accept this project. It is an extremely serious project, a project that has many experts working on it and in the next stage, myself and others will have talks with politicians, educational committees, minister officials and so on. What I want, and I found that most people here in the hall do not necessarily want us to wrap it up fast, but to complete a project that is so good and so convincing that it will be taken over by politicians, translated into public policy and so on. Obviously this requires a lot of persuasion work and I was asked whether in the end I will seek to forge a pact on Education. I believe that a pact on Education, on this project, is not the ideal form. It requires a lot of persuasion work and if need, we will talk the politicians into it one by one until we succeed in properly promoting this project," Iohannis said at the Cotroceni Presidential Palace.

He added that the anticipated consultations will not be easy, but that he will try to persuade the politicians about the 'Educated Romania' project.

"It won't be that easy. It won't be that easy to invite party leaders to negotiations. It will take a lot of talks in various formats, both formal and informal. My opinion is that we must have hundreds, literally hundreds of talks with politicians, with the government members for us to be able to jointly find the best form. After all, let no one imagine that I'm looking for a form of project that bypasses politicians. No. I am looking to forge a form of the 'Educated Romania' project together with experts, teachers and politicians, and for this I am willing to have a lot of talks, to invest a lot of energy and time," Iohannis said.

Referring to the proposal of former Minister of Education Sorin Cimpeanu, currently a member of the Pro Romania Party, to take over the "Educated Romania" project as a legislative initiative, the head of the state replied: "I see them all as partners. I don't want a project that runs parallel to politicians or without politicians at all. No, I'm going to convince them one on one to participate."

The President also said that the Ministry of Education will participate in the debates on the "Educated Romania" project, and that the reason why EduMin Ecaterina Andronescu did not attend yesterday's launch event is that she was in Brussels, alongside the entire Cabinet, for talks with the EC.

"This is a slightly unfortunate coincidence, but let nobody imagine I would want to exclude specifically the Ministry of Education from this debate. No. They will definitely be part of the debate," Klaus Iohannis emphasized. AGERPRES (RO - author: Florentina Peia, editor: Claudia Stanescu; EN - author: Simona Klodnischi, editor: Simona Iacob)