Country data: Romania

All comparisons are with the figures for 10 December 2020, the previous reporting date.

The last 2 years, the COVID-19 pandemic forced Member State authorities to address pressing priorities and affected their performance in transposing EU rules to some degree. In this context, the Commission has taken a number of extraordinary measures aimed at relieving the strain on Member States’ administrative resources. Nevertheless, it has also made clear that the Member States’ legal obligations to transpose EU directives in time remain unchanged.

 

Transposition deficit (percentage of all directives not transposed): 2.9% (last report: 1.1%) – a huge increase of 1.8 percentage points (the highest increase among all Member States). Romania has the highest deficit, and this is the country’s highest deficit ever.
EU average = 1.6%; proposed target (in the Single Market Act) = 0.5%

Romania’s performance on this criterion is quite uneven. It sometimes manages to near the 1% target set by the European Council. And sometimes stays very far from it, which is the case this year with a transposition deficit that is almost triple the target. We have to go back in 2016, when an unusually large number of directives had to be transposed, to find Member States with such high deficits. In addition, Romania did not transpose 15 of the 26 single market directives (58%) due to have been transposed in the 6 months before the cut-off date for calculating the deficit (1 June to 30 November 2021). Constraints due to the COVID-19 pandemic did not help. However, that aside, Romania needs to focus more closely on the timely transposition of directives.

Overdue directives: 29 (last report: 11), including 7 on financial services, 5 on connectivity/ media/digital society, 4 on energy and 4 on transport. One directive is more than 2 years overdue (Directive (EU) 2018/1581 amending Council Directive 2009/119/EC as regards the methods for calculating stockholding obligations).

Average delay in transposing directives: 8.3 months (last report: 7.2 months) – an increase of 1.1 months but the average delay is still less than the EU average.   
EU average = 8.6 months

Romania added 1 long-overdue directive (due for 2 years) to its very high backlog. A total of 5 outstanding directives have been due for between 1 and 2 years and 7 directives for between 6 and 12 months. Their duration is offset by the shortest duration of the other 16 outstanding directives (less than 6 months).

Conformity deficit (percentage of all directives transposed incorrectly: 0.9% (last report: 1.3%) – a marked decrease of 0.4 percentage points. Romania has the second lowest deficit among Member States. 
EU average = 1.3%; proposed target (in the Single Market Act) = 0.5%

The number of new infringement proceedings that the Commission has launched against Member States for incorrectly transposing single market directives has more than halved in 2 years. Nevertheless, the number of ongoing cases is still high. With 9 directives presumed to have been incorrectly transposed, Romania’s conformity deficit is well below the EU average.

Evolution of transposition deficit

 

Evolution of conformity deficit

 

All comparisons are with the figures for 1 December 2020, the previous reporting date.

 

Pending single market cases: 30 (7 new cases and 14 cases closed, including 3 on sustainable and intelligent transport, and 3 on energy; last report: 37 pending cases) – this is a marked decrease of 7 cases (the third highest decrease among all Member States) and just slightly above the EU average.           
EU average = 27 cases

Romania’s number of cases steadily increased between December 2016 and December 2020 (+106%, from 18 to 37 cases). It is now back on track, with a 19% reduction in the reporting period. However, Romania remains in the top ten of Member States with the highest number of pending cases.

The Commission launched 120 new cases against Member States in the reporting period (besides those for late transposition), and these were still pending on 1 December 2021. A total of 7  cases were launched against Romania, which is almost double the EU average of 4 new cases launched in the reporting period. However, 14 Romanian cases have been resolved since December 2020 (the second highest number among Member States), which is much better than the EU average (8).

Problematic sectors: the environment (11 cases), including 6 on atmospheric pollution and 3 on waste management; energy (5). Together, these make up 53% of all pending cases.

Average case duration: 32.5 months for the 28 single market cases not yet sent to the European Court of Justice (last report: 26.5 months) – a new increase of 6 months, but the average case duration is still much shorter than the EU average.      
EU average = 42.8 months

The average case duration of Romanian cases has significantly increased in the last 3 years (+46%). However, Romania has the third shortest average case duration of all Member States. It is also one of six Member States whose average case duration is below the 36-month indicative target. Most of the Romanian cases (18 out of 28) have been running for less than 3 years. The long duration of 2 cases on air transport and financial services (running for 10 and 6 years respectively) is offset by the short duration (less than 12 months) of 7 new cases launched in the year and the resolution of 14 cases with an average duration of around 2 years.

Time taken to comply with Court rulings: 44.4 months for the only single market case at the Court-ruling stage of the procedure and closed in the last 5 years (last report: same). 
EU average = 46.8 months

There has been no change since the previous period. Romania had one case on waste management with which it needed 44.4 months to comply.

Evolution of infringement cases

Performance – Romania maintained an excellent performance.

• Results for all five indicators were above the EEA average.
• Performance for four indicators further improved compared to the previous year.
• Results for four indicators were in the top ten among Member States in the respective areas.

• Caseload – very large
  Submitted cases:137 (148 in 2020)
  Received cases: 75 (84 in 2020)

• Cases not accepted: 227 (251 in 2020)

• Resolution rate: 93% (87% in 2020)
• Handling time (as home centre)
  Reply within 7 days: 89% (93% in 2020) – good
  Cases prepared within 30 days: 80% (60% in 2020) – good

• Solutions accepted within 7 days: 90% (90% in 2020) – good

  Cases not accepted within 30 days: 70% (56% in 2020) – good

• Handling time (as lead centre)
  Cases accepted within 7 days:  96% (83% in 2020) – very good
  Cases closed within 10 weeks:  43% (58% in 2020) – very poor
• Staffing level
  Needs improvement

In 2022, the average payment delay (the time exceeding the legal or contractually agreed payment terms) by Romanian public authorities was 15 days.

The average number of days needed for a business to have its invoices paid by other businesses (business-to-business payments) was 52.92 days.

Indicator	2021	EU average
Burden of government regulation (survey replies: 1 = worst, 7 = best)	3.0	3.6
Digital public services to start and run a business (100% = best performing)	42.3%	n/a
Payment delays by public authorities	15 days	15.7 days
Time to resolve insolvency	3.3 years	2.0 years
Impact of regulation on long-term investment decisions (survey replies)	46.3%	n/a

Indicator	2021	EU average
Single bidder	33%	25%
No calls for bids	17%	6%
Publication rate (value advertised on Tenders Electronic Daily, in % of GDP)	9.0%	5.9%
Cooperative procurement (proportion of procedures with more than one buyer)	1%	5%
Award criteria (proportion of procedures awarded to cheapest bid)	89%	64%
Decision speed (days)	106	99
SME contractors	40%	61%
SME bids	62%	73%
Procedures divided into lots	51%	31%
Missing calls for bids	3%	1%
Missing seller registration numbers	0%	29%
Missing buyer registration numbers	1%	11%

Note: A typical (mid-ranking) EU country is used for the EU average for all indicators except the publication rate. Due to delays in data availability, publication rate results are based on 2020 data.

Indicator	2021	EU average
Restrictiveness indicator – architect	3.0	2.5
Restrictiveness indicator – accountant	3.2	1.7
Restrictiveness indicator – civil engineer	2.6	2.4
Restrictiveness indicator – lawyer	3.4	3.4
Restrictiveness indicator – real estate agent	0.0	1.3
Restrictiveness indicator – patent agent	2.2	2.2
Restrictiveness indicator – tourist guide	1.7	1.2
Domestic priority letter prices, letter 20 g (2020)	€ 0.76	€ 0.88
Intra-EU priority letter prices, letter 20 g (2020)	€ 1.45	€ 1.53
Domestic transit times, day+1 performance, priority letters 20 g (2020)	47.0%	84.2%

Note: The EU restrictiveness indicator (EURI) measures the level of restrictiveness for the cross-border provision of services and the right of establishment for seven groups of professional services with a high share in EU firms’ intermediate consumption or cross-border mobility. The level of restrictiveness is measured on a scale from 0 (least restrictive) to 6 (most restrictive). 

Indicator	2021	EU average
Access to public financial support (% of SMEs indicating deterioration)	15.8%	11.3%
Time to get paid by businesses (2022 survey)	52.9 days	52.5 days
Venture capital investments (% of GDP)	0.03%	0.48%