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Nicolae Raţiu/caption
Nicolae Raţiu was born on May 7 1948 in Davos Switzerland. He is the younger of two sons of the former Romanian politician Ion Raţiu. He studies at the Marlborough College in Marlborough Wiltshire England less than 80 miles from London (1965) and the State University of New York Maritime College (B.Sc. in Marine Transportation and Economics 1971).
Mr. Raţiu is Managing Director of the Regent House Properties Ltd. (1971 to present) that does property investment and development in UK and Romania and Chairman of the Pilkington Raţiu Business School (2012 to present) in Bucharest Romania.
He is also Chairman of the Raţiu Family Charitable Foundation President of the Raţiu Democracy Center and senior advisor to the familys Bellerive group of companies in the UK France and Romania with a major portfolio in real estate development and investment.
A businessman and philanthropist Mr. Raţiu is also a trustee of a number of further charities in Romania and the UK amongst which are The Romanian Cultural Center in London Pro Patrimonio (The National Trust of Romania) ADEPT and The Relief Fund for Romania.
Mr. Raţiu is currently living in London UK.
I met Nicolae Raţiu on November 17 2018 at the Romanian Embassy in Washington DC during a gala-symposium on issues of politics security management and culture an event sponsored by the
ALIANȚA (The Alliance The Friends of the Romanian-American Alliance) Foundation.
On that occasion Mr. Raţiu was kind enough to give me a brief interview.
1. Mr. Raţiu Romania is about to end the Centenary Year of 2018 since its Great Union. How would you characterize the year of 2018 for Romania and Romanians?
Well its the year of the great celebration thats the celebration of unity that took place a hundred of years ago. There is a unity amongst Romanians I suppose today but there is also like in several parts of the world a polarization of the people. There are those who support the current government and there are those who turn it against the current government. I mean its a… there is no close… sort of middle ground at the moment unfortunately. And we see the same in the USA we see the same in the UK and in France or in Italy its all over… Thats not going to be in Romania but its a difficult time and Im not quite sure how long it will take to come out to this. But in the meantime of course we can celebrate a hundred years since the creation of Greater Romania.
2. Thank you so much. How would you characterize in short the Anglo-American relations with Romania during the current administrations Iohannis May Trump you know with the wave of nationalism Brexit immigration and so on and so forth?
I think… It seems that the relations between the USA and Romania are at the presidential level at a high level are very good. Also from the security point of view in cooperation within NATO relations between Romania and the U.S. probably couldnt be better. There is a current understanding there is a mutual respect of the difficult roles of those nations and I think the U.S. especially respects Romania and the link with Romania. The fact that they Romania is in NATO is to the benefit of NATO for the benefit of the U.S. And on the other side I think Romanians are there statistically. Some eighty percent of Romanians when asked the question Who is your best ally?" the answer is The USA." And thats why I think the relations are good. Relations between UK and Romania are rather mute because the Britain has so torn apart with this Brexit argument. There is not enough time to think of anything else. The patriots write nothing else than on that subject. They dont know whats right and favorable for Romania. I dont see Brexit being good for the UK or good for Romania. And its not going to be good for Romanians living in the UK because there are persons in a rather precarious situation for their future. They dont really know what their rights are its still unclear and how long they can stay. And how as students they can complete their studies. If there are so many gray unknown areas this is just to make a stupidity.
3. What challenges will Romania face in its near future in your opinion?
The Romanian government has recently been criticized severely and votes are taken against them in the European Parliament by a vast majority sanctioning their actions that theyve been taking in the areas of justice and the rule of law to dismantling so much the separation of powers and independence of judiciary. And this is in regard within a large drop of confidence in Romania probably the rest of the EU United States other trading partners because to do business in Romania you need to know that you have the protection of an independent law. Now the impression and that reality that is being delivered by the ruling parties in government is precisely removing that security. So therefore not surprisingly there has been a drop over the last eight or nine months. Thats a drop in foreign choice investment there is a certain unease in Romania that perhaps not a crisis is coming maybe a very bad crisis. And the other recent measures taken by the Romanian government to increase drastically the minimum wage I only see this as a total destruction of the advantage of the commercial advantage that Romania has left it in its trading with other nations. As a matter of fact in industry the actions taken by the Romanian government will decimate a lot of factories in the industry and people will be put out factories will close people will be put out of jobs. So theoretically they have a higher minimum wage but they have no job.
4. In conclusion Mr. Raţiu can you share any of the Raţiu Foundation projects in the future?
Well we have two particular projects I should say programs here in the U.S. One is with the Woodrow Wilson Center which is the Ion Raţiu Democracy Award Fellowship" and the second is the Chair of the Romanian Studies the Ion Raţiu Chair of the Romanian Studies Georgetown University which continues. We may add possibly some fellows to that we dont know well see. Thats in the U.S. In Romania we are increasing the Centrul Raţiu pentru democraţie" (The Raţiu Democracy Center) based in Turda. In Turda in Cluj county we are increasing working with other partners like London School of Economics and UCL University College London. And there are various think tanks and some organizations on doing on putting together conferences to study and talk and debate issues like the importance of the rule of law the importance of the independent investigative journalists on measures and programs to include youths in civil society. So like civic responsibility and having grassroots democracy with the intent to increase the volume of these because we think there is a vacuum in the especially in the younger generation to discuss the understanding to be productive concrete positive in the future.
5. Thank you Sir.
With pleasure.
NOTE - A version of the article was published in MEDIUM.
TIBERIU DIANU has published several books and a host of articles in law politics and post-communist societies. He currently lives and works in Washington DC and can be followed on MEDIUM.
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