Romania’s public sector must become more open to collaboration with businesses and move away from seeing the state as the center of the economy, according to Andrei Niculae, Vice President of the Romanian Authority for Digitalization (ADR).
Speaking at the Innovation Forum 2026, organized by The Diplomat-Bucharest, Niculae argued that a healthy economy should be driven primarily by market demand rather than public spending.
“I do not believe that, in any industry or sector, the state should be the benchmark that companies look for. In an ideal world, Romanian companies should generate sufficient demand among themselves and in international markets so they can continue to grow independently,” Niculae said.
He emphasized that government should play an enabling role rather than becoming the focal point of business activity.
“The state should not be at the center. It should be as absent as possible from the lives of companies and citizens. Our challenge is to make the public sector more open to the market and more willing to adopt technologies that the private sector develops and implements much more rapidly than we do,” he said.
Describing public administration as inherently difficult to transform, Niculae said governments are rarely natural champions of innovation.
“By definition, the state is a very large and slow-moving structure. Innovation does not come naturally to it. That is precisely why the public sector needs the private sector, especially in technology,” he said.
Niculae also pointed to what he described as a persistent cultural divide between public institutions and society.
“As both a public official and a citizen, I see a very clear barrier between the state and society. There is a mentality of ‘us versus them’ instead of a genuine partnership between public institutions and the people and companies they are meant to serve,” he said.
According to Niculae, this mindset is reflected in the way citizens and businesses interact with public authorities.
“Everyone has experienced how difficult it can be to engage with public institutions—whether it is getting an email answered, reaching someone by phone or seeing proposals translated into concrete action. We must first remove this barrier by creating a genuine dialogue with civil society and the business community that delivers tangible results,” he said.
Niculae also questioned why Romanian public institutions make limited use of competitive dialogue procedures in public procurement, arguing that existing mechanisms could facilitate stronger cooperation with the private sector.
“There are already instruments that can make the state much more open to the market. We need to make better use of them,” he said.
The ADR Vice President stressed that government cannot successfully deliver large-scale digital transformation projects without external expertise.
“The Romanian state must understand that it cannot implement projects, innovate or develop technology entirely on its own. These efforts require real partnerships with companies,” he said.
Addressing criticism that ADR lacks sufficient in-house software development capacity, Niculae argued that public institutions should not aim to become software companies.
“The real question is whether we want the state to build all of its own systems internally, often in an opaque way—or whether we want genuine partnerships, recognizing that the public sector moves much more slowly when it comes to innovation, procurement and organizational change,” he said.
Instead, Niculae said the government’s priority should be strengthening its ability to manage projects and oversee collaboration with technology providers.
“A real partnership between ADR and technology companies—whether Romanian or international—is the right direction. Where we should truly invest is in people who understand public administration, business processes and project implementation. The state must also have the capacity to effectively manage and monitor its relationship with private partners,” he concluded.