Razvan Nicolescu: Appointment to EIT board isn’t political, but won through contest

 

On Monday, the EIT announced the appointment by the European Commission of four new members in the Governing Board, namely Razvan Nicolescu (former Energy Minister), Jan Figel (former European Commissioner and Slovak Deputy PM), Janis Grevins (university professor) and Nora Khaldi (CEO of a biotech company).

 

"I thank the European Commission for the appointment to the board of the European Institute for Innovation and Technology (EIT), one of the most dynamic and avant-garde institutions of the European Union. The appointment is the final result of a complex selection process that I found out about from "The Economist" magazine. It's not a political appointment, nor a position owed to Romania, but it's a position that a Romanian won by contest, by entering competition with several other Europeans. For this reason I encourage you to trust in your chances so that your dreams may become reality. In what regards me, there can be no thing better than to be on the first line of a large European organization that intends to contribute to the changing of humanity for the better," Nicolescu shoed.

 

According to him, combating climate change, clean energy and urban mobility are among the EIT priorities.

 

He showed concern for the fact that, in the previous financial exercise, Romania accessed only 1.8 million euro of the 2.4 billion administered by EIT, occupying, by far, the last place in the EU countries.

 

"For the country that gave the world, recently, UiPath it's very little. I hope my appointment be an impulse for universities, research institutes, startups and Romanian companies to follow and benefit from EIT financing that will increase in the coming years but also from belonging to the largest innovation network in Europe," Nicolescu also said.

 

The appointment of Razvan Nicolescu to the EIT Governing Board represents the first appointment of a Romanian to the leading body of this European institution, being the final result of a complex recruitment process ran by an independent panel of experts.

 

Nicolescu is one of the best known Romanian experts in the field of energy, recognized at an international level. He was the head of the European Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators (ACER) between 2014 and 2016, a member of the Administrative Board of ACER (2010-2016) and Energy Minister in 2014, without being a member of a political party, and in the 2006-2008 period was Romania's representative to the European Union on matters of energy.