Romania

Overview and recent developments

Romania has gradually developed its regulatory policy since the early 2000s. While Law 24/2000 on drafting legal acts set out an initial obligation to identify the impacts of draft regulations, the requirements for RIA have been further refined in Government Decision no. 1361 issued in 2006. According to these provisions, all regulations are required to be accompanied by an explanatory note, describing the rationale and assessing the impacts of the draft proposal. Additionally, Romania introduced a template for assessing the impacts during the development of public policy initiatives, including regulatory initiatives, which also assesses alternative options.

Nevertheless, challenges in the implementation of RIA remain. In practice, the quality of explanatory notes varies and the actual assessment of impacts is not always conducted. Romania has improved its guidance in 2015 and is currently developing proportionality criteria so as to better focus efforts on regulatory proposals with significant impacts. Romania should strengthen its oversight of RIA to ensure that RIA can effectively inform policy makers on the costs and benefits of different policy options.

Regarding stakeholder engagement, Law no. 52/2003 requires ministries to publish all regulations for comments on their websites. Romania recently established a central consultation portal where all consultations of ministries are listed. However, the minimum period for submitting comments is limited to ten days and no feedback on the outcomes of consultations is currently provided to participants.

Romania lacks a systematic approach for reviewing existing regulations. Ex post evaluation is largely conducted on an ad hoc basis by ministries and there is neither methodological guidance nor a requirement for the periodical review of existing regulations.

Institutional setup for regulatory oversight

Located in the General Secretariat of the Government, the Department for Coordinating Policies and Priorities (DCPP) is responsible for the implementation of the Romanian Better Regulation Strategy and the development of the Romanian RIA system. Romania does not have central oversight of the quality of RIA in place. Some ministries, such as the Ministry of Finance or the Ministry of Justice, review specific sections of explanatory notes as part the endorsement procedure of regulations. The Ministry for Public Consultation and Social Dialogue is responsible for the development of the central consultation platform as well as for monitoring and evaluating the consultation process.

Requirements to use regulatory management tools for EU-made laws: Romania
Stakeholder engagement		Regulatory impact assessment
Development stage
The government facilitates the engagement of domestic stakeholders in the European Commission’s consultation process	Yes
Negotiation stage
Stakeholder engagement is required to define the negotiating position for EU directives/regulations	No	RIA is required to define the negotiating position for EU directives/regulations	No
Consultation is required to be open to the general public	No
Transposition stage
Stakeholder engagement is required when transposing EU directives	Yes	RIA is required when transposing EU directives	No
The same requirements and processes apply as for domestically made laws	Yes	The same requirements and processes for RIA apply as for domestically made laws	No
Consultation is required to be open to the general public	Yes	RIA includes a specific assessment of provisions added at the national level beyond those in the EU directives	No
		RIA distinguishes between impacts stemming from EU requirements and additional national implementation measures	No
Source: Indicators of Regulatory Policy and Governance Survey 2017, http://oe.cd/ireg.

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