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 several 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.