New legislation for the implementation of the Recovery and Resilience Plan
Romanian MPs have adopted two bills stipulated in the Recovery and Resilience Plan
Roxana Vasile, 27.03.2025, 14:00
Romanian MPs on Wednesday passed two bills that Romania pledged to adopt as part of its Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR). The first concerns streamlining the activity of state-owned enterprises by ensuring competitiveness, sustainable economic growth and the introduction of procedures that ensure financial integrity. The law is also an important milestone in Romania’s accession to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, says Social-Democrat MP Adrian Câciu:
“The people who run these companies must understand that they were given a mandate to manage the country’s assets, which belong to the country, not to them, not to introduce policies that increase inflation, as we’ve seen in the energy sector, not to make stock policies, as we had and still have in terms of energy. So, they should know their place, they should not forget that they are here to serve the Romanian state and the Romanian citizens”.
By contrast, the representative of the opposition S.O.S Romania party, Dumitru Coarnă, says that the law goes against national interests:
“There are over 240 autonomous agencies and 1,200 institutions still owned by the Romanian state, including Hidroelectrica, Nuclearelectrica, Romsilva or Salrom, to name just a few. With this bill, you are willing to give away whatever the Romanian state has left in the field of state-owned companies”.
As the Chamber of Deputies was the decision-making body in this case, once adopted the law was submitted to the president for ratification. Romanian deputies also adopted another law Romania pledged to implement as part of its Recovery and Resilience Plan. Based on the document, officials from the central administration will be forced to register in the Single Register of Transparency of Interests, being prohibited, during the exercise of their mandate, from requesting or accepting gifts from individuals with a vested interest in promoting certain projects. Public records must be made available of all meetings between government officials and third parties who might influence decision-making, including meetings without prior appointments. Liberal MP Florin Roman says the law introduces unprecedented regulations:
“Europe gave us money, and also asked us for the conditions and integrity criteria for the people authorizing these payments. From here on out, we will have full transparency”. The Save Romania Union (USR), which would have liked this measure to apply to other institutions such as the National Authority for Property Restitution (ANRP) or the National Authority for Communications Administration and Regulation (ANCOM), condemned the rejection of an amendment in this regard. Also, the law does not apply to local public administration or members of Parliament. (VP)
