Today, the Romanian flag has been raised in front of CERN for the first time, marking the country’s accession to Membership of the Organization.

Geneva, 5 September 2016. Today, the Romanian flag has been raised in front of CERN for the first time, marking the country’s accession to Membership of the Organization.

The Romanian flag is raised alongside the flags of CERN’s other Member States, in the presence of the Romanian President, CERN’s Director-General, the President of the CERN Council and a large Romanian delegation. (Image: CERN)

Update 5 September 2016

On Monday, 5 September, the Romanian flag was raised in front of CERN for the first time, marking the country’s accession to Membership of the Organization. The blue, yellow and red flag joined those of the other 21 Member States of CERN in a ceremony attended by the President of Romania, Klaus Iohannis, the Romanian Minister for Education and Scientific Research, Mircea Dumitru, and other members of the President’s office, the government and academia in Romania. The country officially became a CERN Member State on 17 July 2016, after 25 years of collaboration between the Laboratory and Romania’s scientific institutes.

“It is a great pleasure to extend a warm welcome to Romania as it joins the increasingly large CERN family!”, said Fabiola Gianotti, CERN's Director General.

“I am so happy that Romania has demonstrated today that, after the requisite due diligence and careful deliberation, it is still possible for nations to join forces on important issues in full, whole-hearted consensus”, said Sijbrand de Jong, the President of CERN Council.

“Romania is very proud to join the CERN community. We are confident that our country's membership represents international recognition of the excellence of the Romanian research and scientific community and of its remarkable results”, said Klaus Iohannis, the President of Romania.

After the ceremony, the delegation visited S’Cool LAB, CERN’s laboratory for school pupils, took a tour of the LHC and ATLAS, one of the experiments in which Romanian institutes participate, and met Romanian scientists.

Original Press Release

Geneva, 18 July 2016. Romania yesterday became the twenty-second Member State of CERN1, having acceded to the Organization's founding Convention, deposited with UNESCO. The notification by UNESCO of Romania’s accession to the Convention brings to a conclusion the formal application process that started in 2008, crowning a period of cooperation stretching back 25 years.

"This is a very special moment for Romania and its relationship with CERN,” said Ambassador Adrian Vierita, Romania’s Permanent Representative to the UN in Geneva. “We are proud of the work of the many Romanian scientists and engineers who in recent years have cooperated with CERN and greatly contributed to this outcome. We are looking forward to deepening and diversifying this cooperation as a full-fledged member of CERN, for the benefit of science and humankind.”

"The accession of Romania to full CERN membership underlines the importance of European research collaboration in the quest to understand nature at its most fundamental level,” said Professor Sijbrand de Jong, President of the CERN Council. “United we can do so much more than as individual countries."

“I am extremely pleased to welcome Romania as a new Member State of CERN,” said Fabiola Gianotti, CERN Director-General. “These are exciting times for CERN and particle physics, and I am very glad that the Romanian scientific community, in particular the younger generations, will now have increased opportunities to contribute to our truly international research programme. We have a long history of working with Romania and I am delighted to witness this relationship being reinforced today.”

Bilateral contacts began back in 1991, when a scientific and technical cooperation agreement was signed between CERN and the Government of Romania, establishing the legal framework for later developments.

Aspiring to become a full-fledged Member State and thus to contribute fully also to the governance of the Laboratory, Romania submitted its formal application to join the Organization in April 2008. The Agreement granting Romania the status of Candidate for Accession came into force on 12 November 2010.

Romania's scientific community at CERN has grown over the years and currently numbers around a hundred visiting scientists. Romania has particularly strong presence in the LHC experiments ATLAS, ALICE and LHCb. Romanian researchers and engineers also work at DIRAC and n_TOF at the Proton Synchrotron (PS), on the NA62 experiment at the Super Proton Synchrotron (SPS), and at the ISOLDE facility. Romania is also active in the Worldwide LHC Computing Grid and takes full advantage of technology transfer opportunities offered by CERN, notably through membership of the HEPTech network.

1. CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, is the world's leading laboratory for particle physics. Its headquarters are in Geneva. Its Member States are: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Israel, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and United Kingdom. Cyprus and Serbia are Associate Member States in the pre-stage to Membership. Pakistan and Turkey are Associate Member States. The European Union, India, Japan, JINR, the Russian Federation, UNESCO and the United States of America have Observer status.