Razvan-Petru Radu has been RomLux’s president since its founding in 2007. He says that the organisation serves as a bridge between Luxembourg and Romania. Photo: Matic Zorman/Maison Moderne

Razvan-Petru Radu has been RomLux’s president since its founding in 2007. He says that the organisation serves as a bridge between Luxembourg and Romania. Photo: Matic Zorman/Maison Moderne

As the Romania Luxemburg Business Forum (RomLux) celebrates 15 years of promoting economic relationships between the two countries, president Razvan-Petru Radu discusses its main achievements and upcoming cultural and business events.

Lydia Linna: To start with: are there any special historical connections between Romania and Luxembourg?

Razvan-Petru Radu: Certainly. The two countries have had diplomatic relations for 160 years, and Luxembourg City and Sibiu in Romania were joint European capitals of culture in 2007.

Indeed, Sibiu is a city in Transylvania that is very much linked to Luxembourg. Many Luxembourgers migrated to the region, and there are still people there who speak a dialect of Luxembourgish! There are even towns in Transylvania built like villages in the Moselle.

But the links between Romania and Luxembourg are not just historical. RomLux aims to connect businesses in the two countries. Can you tell us more about RomLux?

Our non-profit organisation was founded in 2007, the same year Romania joined the EU. It started with 35 members and now has over 125 members. We bring people, companies and organisations together from both countries. The organisation serves as a bridge from Luxembourg to Romania and from Romania to Luxembourg.

It’s a community of passionate professionals. Everybody is a volunteer, and RomLux’s events, innovation missions and conferences are thanks to people’s involvement and open hearts.

Speaking of events, RomLux has organised over 100 events in 15 years. What are some of its major achievements?

First of all, we put Luxembourg on the map in Romania. The opportunities and projects that Luxembourg offers are relatively unknown, so we have focused on communication around these offers.

During the last five or six years in particular, we have opened up the grand duchy to startups and innovators in Romania, promoting Luxembourg as a gateway for Europe and for the world. By highlighting the startup ecosystem and services that Luxembourg provides, we have had a big impact on entrepreneurship.

In addition, we’ve organised several business-oriented and cultural events to increase awareness of Romania, such as an art exhibition featuring Luxembourgish-American artist Edward Steichen and Romanian artist Constantin Brancusi, a webinar with Luxair or a roadshow for Romanian venture capitalists.

The VC roadshow, organised in partnership with the Luxembourg Private Equity and Venture Capital Association (LPEA), brought together venture capital companies and fund managers focusing not only on Romania, but more broadly eastern and central Europe.

And finally, earlier this year, RomLux received the accreditation for bilateral business clubs in Luxembourg or abroad (CCBL) from the Chamber of Commerce of Luxembourg.

Are there Romanian companies that have benefitted from opportunities in Luxembourg?

One of the best examples is Finqware, a company that provides open banking. The founder came to ICT Spring [a global technology conference in Luxembourg] in 2018 with just an idea. Now, Finqware is accredited by the National Bank of Romania to operate payments. It’s also approved by the [financial watchdog] Commission de Surveillance du Secteur Financier in Luxembourg.


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EmailTree is another member of RomLux. They use artificial intelligence to automatise answers to emails, which can now be provided in nine languages. The company benefits fully from the bridge between Romania and Luxembourg--EmailTree started in Luxembourg but works with an IT team in Romania. It exploits the best of both worlds!

Can you share some of RomLux’s plans for the future?

We’re always having events--fundraising events, football tournaments, and the international bazaar, to mention just a few. But there are some special events coming up soon.

We are planning an innovation mission to Bucharest on 21-24 November, allowing a delegation from Luxembourg to discover Romanian entrepreneurs and helping Romanians to learn about possibilities in Luxembourg. They will participate in a big banking and tech conference in Bucharest, panels on venture capitals and sustaining start-ups, networking opportunities, as well as visits to the immersion labs of Romania’s “unicorn,” UiPath. [Editor’s note: this interview was conducted in mid-October, before the innovation mission had taken place.]

Then, to celebrate the 15th anniversary of RomLux, there will be a concert at the Philharmonie on 29 November featuring Luxembourgish and Romanian musicians--the violinist, in fact, will play on a Stradivarius.

And finally, in March 2023, we are organising a roadshow for Romanian blue-chip companies. Together with the Luxembourg and Romania stock exchanges, we aim to bring several companies listed in Bucharest here to the grand duchy in order to present these companies to investors in Luxembourg.

An alternate version of this article first appeared in the .