The European Roundtable of Industrialists (ERT) is a forum of 43 European industrial
leaders aimed at promoting the competitiveness and growth of Europe's economy.
Since its creation in 1983, ERT has contributed significantly to an improved
dialogue between industry and governments, at both national and European levels.
The ERT members are leading industrialists -- Chairmen and Chief Executives Officers
(CEOs) of large multinational companies -- representing all sectors of industry,
which have their headquarters in Europe and also significant manufacturing and
technological presence worldwide.
A number of companies headed by the ERT members have significant investments
in Romania and many of their affiliates are members of Romania’s Foreign
Investors Council (FIC).
Much of the work of the ERT is done by nine Working Groups, which cover areas
such as European Union (EU) enlargement, environment, competition policy, competitiveness,
industrial relations/social policy, foreign economic relations, taxation, accounting,
and governance.
ERT members companies, who are already major investors in Central and Eastern
Europe, believe that EU enlargement can be a win-win situation for the East and
for the West.
The objective of the Working Group on Enlargement is to work on further improvement
of the investment climate, and to support candidate countries to prepare for
EU membership. ERT is committed to dialogue with national governments about investment
and EU enlargement related issues. The Chairman of the Working Group on Enlargement
is Mr. Antony Burgmans, Chairman of Unilever NV.
Mr. Jean Martin, a Senior Executive of Unilever and the Convener of the Working
Group on Enlargement, visited Romania during February and June of this year,
in order to develop the objectives of the Enlargement Working Group for Romania,
in collaboration with the FIC.
The FIC, the ERT and the Government of Romania (GoR) have agreed to organize
a high level meeting with the objective of reviewing the progress made by
Romania in meeting the EU accession criteria in the business area and identifying
where further improvement is necessary.
Prime Minister Adrian Nastase, senior GoR officials, CEO-level representatives
of the companies of FIC/ERT members (including Coca-Cola, Mol, Shell, Unilever
and Zoppas) and representatives of FIC member companies will attend the meeting,
which will be held in Bucharest on January 16, 2004.
At the conclusion of this meeting, hopefully the ERT members will be able
to convey a positive message on the progress made by Romania to the Governments
of the EU member states, the European Commission and national and international
media.