The Federation of Catholic Family Associations in Europe (FAFCE) and its member in Romania, “Vladimir Ghika” Catholic Family Association, in partnership with the Committee on Equal Opportunities of the Romanian Senate, held yesterday a conference in the Romanian Parliament on the Family at the centre of the Economy.

With the participation of Members of the Parliament coming from the major political parties of Romania, the seminar gathered policy-makers, academics and representatives of civil society to debate about the urgency of family policies who really take into account the priceless value of the family for the economy and for the society as a whole. 

As stated by Paul Dembinski (Observatoire de la Finance, Switzerland) in his contribution, “Families are not only “producers” of capital – human capital – but also of goods and services, providers of care, and regenerators of energies essential for any productive activity“.  This complementarity between the economic life and the family must be recognised by implementing a renewed form of family policy.Basing his reasoning on this principle, Vincenzo Bassi (Forum delle Famiglie, Italian Member of FAFCE) suggested that “Taxation on families should be proportional to the responsibilities taken by the families themselves in advantage of the society and the common good“.

During the seminar a special highlight was given by Prof. Matteo Rizzolli (LUMSA University, Rome) and by Cristian Paun (Bucharest University of Economic Studies) to the current demographic crisis that all European Countries are experiencing: the Robert Schuman Foundation published this week alarming data in a policy paper with an eloquent title: “Europe 2050: Demographic Suicide“.

The President of FAFCE, Antoine Renard, stated that “Our Romanian Member made excellent proposals as one of the leading authors of 50 proposals concerning family policies in RomaniaOn this topic, the European institutions are a place where to exchange about best practices and we will use all the opportunities we have to provoke a constructive debate on how to respond to the demographic crisis. This is the first international event of this kind“.

Iulian Oanta,  President of “Vladimir Ghika” Catholic Family Association, declared, at the end of the conference, that “It was very constructive to discuss with major policy makers about the challenges concerning demography, pensions and taxes. The first renewal for family policy in Romania would be now to initiate the organisation of the referendum on marriage as an union between a man and a woman, as asked by 3 million citizens“.