Implementation process in Romania.

**General information about the policy process**

 The **Parliament of Romania** has a **bicameral structure**, and is formed of the **Chamber of Deputies** and the , appellations taken over from Romanian constitutional traditions. The Romanian bicameral system is substantiated by the necessity of ensuring a balance in the exercise of the parliamentary functions, by the requirement to debate thoroughly the laws adopted, and to temper the authoritarian or extremist tendencies of a Chamber, in the appreciation of a state of fact, and in the selection of the decisional version. The organization of the joint sittings of the two Chambers is regulated by special standing orders of these sittings. The internal structures of the two Chambers of Parliament consist of the Presidents of the Chambers, the Standing Bureau, the parliamentary committees, and the parliamentary groups.
The **parliamentary committees** are working bodies of the Chambers of Parliament, playing an important part in the preparation of the proceedings, as well as in the exercise of the parliamentary functions, particularly of the legislative and control ones. In the Romanian parliamentary system, according to the Constitution, the Chambers may constitute **standing committees**, temporary inquiry committees, or other special committees. Likewise, joint committees may be constituted for the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate. All these committees are formed in accordance with the political configuration of each Chamber.
The standing committee that play the most important role in the implementation process is **the Committee for Foreign Policy** (there is such a committee in both chambers). This Committee, as a main attribution, **examines drafts and legislative proposals** for development
Reports or opinions in the following areas of competence: **the transposition of EU legislation [...], implementation of the Lisbon Treaty** and other bilateral treaties with member states of the European Union, and also **requests and receives from the Government the information and documentation required for the follow-up and supervision of the transposition of the European legislative acts [...]** and **follows Romania 's fulfillment of the provisions of the Treaty Accession to the European Union.**
Another very important actor in the implementation process of the EU provisions in the national order of Romania is **The Government of Romania.** The Government is the public authority of the executive power, which operates on the basis of a parliamentary vote of confidence, which **ensures the realization of the domestic and foreign policy of the country and exercises the general management of the public administration.** The government is made up of the prime minister and ministers. Here, The **Ministry of Foreign Affairs** is the institution of central public administration which implements the foreign policy of Romania, in accordance with the legislation in force and with the Government’s Program. For that purpose the Ministry works closely with other government institutions, with representatives of the civil society, the business community, the cultural and academic institutions. Inside the Ministry of foreign Affairs works **The Minister Delegate for European Affairs** who has responsibilities in organizing and coordinating the European affairs field at national level.
In fulfilling the functions of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, respectively in fulfilling the attributions regarding the coordination in the field of European affairs for the implementation of the objectives resulting from the quality of Romania as a member state of the European Union, the **Directorate for Legislative Harmonization** (**DAL)** is the specialized structure in fulfilling the main attributions stipulated in art. , Points 37, 42, 43, 46, 47, 48 of the Government Decision no. 16/2017 on the organization and functioning of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. **The main objective of the DAL** **is to ensure the compatibility of the Romanian legislation with the European legislation**, thus contributing to the creation of a modern and coherent legislative framework and to the fulfillment of the obligations arising from the quality of Romania as a member state of the European Union.

**Laws and policies defining Romania’s**
open government agenda (2016):

1. **Access to information**: Low
No. 544/2001 for Access to Public Information, Government Decision
no. 123/2002 regarding the methodological norms for applying Law no.
544/2001, law no. 109/2007 on re-use of public information and
Memorandum of the Government on increasing transparency and
standardising the publishing of information of public interest
(2016).

 2. **Citizen participation:**
law no. 52/2003 on decisional transparency, law no. 62/2011 on social
dialogue and Guide on efficient public consultation by central and
local administration (2016).

3. **Strategies / Plans:**
Programme of the Government, Open
Government Partnership Action Plans (3rd
2016-2018), 1st
objective of the National Anti-Corruption Strategy (development of a
culture of transparency for open governance at central and local
level).

The
government has the responsibility for coordination, monitoring and
evaluation of policy process. Since the creation of the Ministry of
Public Consultation and Social Dialogue (MPCSD) in 2015, the
coordination has been split between the Prime Minister’s
Chancellery and the MPCSD with clearly defined complementary roles.

**Main national actors:**

**National actors involved**

"Bipartite social dialogue may take the form of a **dialogue autonomous**  (trade unions, employers), without any government involvement in regulation and organization and is understood as dialogue between unions, employers expressed in collective bargaining mandatory (regulated by law) or in the form of economic and social interest.

In Romania, tripartie social dialogue takes place within the institutional structure of tripartie consultation (Natinal Tripartite Council for Social Dialogue, social dialogue committees) established at national, local and central under law no. 62/2011 on social dialogue, and other staff consultation, and working commissions parliamentary or tripartite structures on an ad hoc basis. In its advanced tripartite social dialogue relates to negotiation and completion of social agreements."

**At the national level:**

"Tripartite social dialogue at national level is manifested both in institutionalized the National Tripartite Council for Social Dialogue Summit structure (regulated by law no. 62/2011) and occasional tripartite consultation and parliamentary working committees or other structures constitute ad hoc committee type.

An event unique to social dialogue at national level, similar to social cooperation between the European institutions and the European and Social Committee, is the consulting between Parliament / Government and Economic and Social Council, established as the **dialogue (civic)** between civil society representatives or partners social and civil society organizations organized."

**Regional or local actors involved**

The Romanian **Counties** are the administrative-territorial units at the intermediate level, while **Communes, Towns and Municipalities (Cities)** form the local administrative level.

The management of local public affairs is the responsibility of the self-governing deliberative local administrative authorities, namely the County Council (*Consiliul Judeţean*) and the Local Councils *(Consiliul Local)*.

**The relationship between actors:**

In the process of transposing the European Union directives, there is an inter-ministerial coordination. DALcoordinates the work of inter-ministerial groups whose purpose is to create a legal framework, endorses the normative acts that will be transposed into national legislation, prepares proposals aimed at speeding the transposition and implementation process and evaluates the legislative proposals in order to ensure compatibility with the European standards. In order to complete the transposition process, all national legislative measures adopted have to be formally notified through the national electronic database of the General Secretariat of the European Commission. Therefore, DAL manages the database, ensures the notification of the national enforcement measures, monitors the actions taken to facilitate an accurate transposition of the European directives and an adherence to the transposition deadlines, informs the Government about the situation of the national enforcement measures and coordinates the Network of contact points which involves the contact persons from central public authorities in charge of disseminating information related to the transposition of the normative acts, in their area of competence. (MAE)

Within the chain of the inter-institutional coordination for endorsing the normative acts that will be transposed into national legislation, The Ministry of Foreign Affairs will act before the Ministry of Justice, according to art. 20 paragraph (6) of GD no. 561/2009 for the approval of the Regulation regarding the procedures at Government level. This means that in order to eliminate the risk of draft normative acts approved by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs being amended by the institutions receiving them and compromising the compatibility with the European Union law, the Ministry of Justice will be the last to endorse them. (MAE)

**References**

http://gov.ro/ro/guvernul

http://www.mae.ro/

http://www.parlament.ro/

http://www.cdep.ro/

https://www.senat.ro/

https://portal.cor.europa.eu/divisionpowers/Pages/Romania.aspx