UPDATES: THE INVASION OF UKRAINE

NATIONS IN TRANSIT 2022

Romania 56
SEMI-CONSOLIDATED DEMOCRACY /100

Democracy Percentage 55.95

/100
Democracy Score 4.36
/7
LAST YEAR'S DEMOCRACY PERCENTAGE & STATUS
57
/100
Semi-Consolidated Democracy

The ratings are based on a scale of 1 to 7, with 7 representing the highest level of democratic progress
and 1 the lowest.
The Democracy Score is an average of ratings for the categories tracked in a given year.
The Democracy Percentage,
introduced in 2020, is a translation of the Democracy Score to the 0-100 scale, where 0 equals least democratic and 100
equals most democratic.

TOP

Score changes in 2022

 Local Democratic Governance rating declined from 4.50 to 4.25 due to the
politicization of the status of prefect and subprefect and the partisan
distribution of funds from the central to the local level.

As a result, Romania’s Democracy score declined from 4.39 to 4.36.

Executive Summary
Throughout 2021, democracy in Romania was affected by a combination of three
overlapping crises: a health crisis, a political crisis, and an energy crisis. While the
leaders of the country’s main political parties quarreled over the distribution of
positions, ministries, and funds, Romania suffered one of the highest COVID-19 death
rate in the European Union (EU), 1
experienced rising energy costs, and saw the
fourth-highest rate of inflation among EU countries in October. 2

After a three-month political crisis, Romania installed on November 25 its tenth

government in as many years under the leadership of Nicolae Ciucă, a former army
general and member of the National Liberal Party (PNL). The country’s largest
political parties, PNL and the Social Democratic Party (PSD), are longtime rivals, but
they buried the hatchet and settled on an unlikely coalition agreement along with the
Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania (UDMR) to install Ciucă as prime
minister. The coalition agreement foresees PNL swapping the prime minister’s post
with PSD in May 2023. Romania’s next regularly scheduled general election will take
place in 2024.

Romania’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic was underpinned by 30 years of poor

investment and poor leadership in the public health system, and by a bumpy transition
to democracy and a market economy following the fall of the country’s communist
regime in 1989. The impact of COVID-19 on Romania has been devastating, with the
country registering over 58,000 deaths from the virus by year’s end. 3
Meanwhile,
others have died from accidents such as fires at hospitals or simply due to hospitals’
incapacity to treat non-COVID-19 patients throughout the pandemic. 4
These
numbers could have been drastically reduced if decision makers had taken a strategic
TOP
and planned approach towards managing this unprecedented health crisis.

Romania’s political crisis started in September 2021 following internal disputes within
the center-right coalition 5
of PNL, “Save Romania” Union (USR), 6
and UDMR. 7
Instead of taking advantage of what could have been a period of political calm, the
coalition crumbled under the ambitions of then-Prime Minister Florin Cîțu to rule as
he wished. Losing the support of its coalition partners, the Cîțu government collapsed
in October following a no-confidence motion initiated by PSD and supported by all
opposition parties in Parliament as well as the second-largest party in the erstwhile
governing coalition, USR. The removal of the Cîțu government through this motion of
censure intensified political tensions that had already led to a record depreciation of
the national currency, the Romanian leu (RON). 8
Although Romania is due to
receive an estimated €29.2 billion from the EU as part of the bloc’s COVID-19 recovery
program, the country’s prevailing political instability jeopardizes the management of
these funds.

Another area of potential mismanagement is the newly adopted Anghel Saligny

National Investment Program for local development, which has vague criteria for how
projects should be selected, implemented, monitored, and audited. Instead of learning
from past mistakes, such as previous national programs for local development
(PNDLs)—widely criticized for their lack of transparency and objectivity in the
attribution of funds and contracts, corrupt practices, and poor implementation—it
seems that the Saligny program is essentially a carbon copy of the last two PNDLs. In
order to adopt this program before the internal elections for PNL leadership in fall
2021, PM Cîțu first dismissed the USR justice minister (who opposed it) and then
rammed it through via an emergency ordinance on September 3 in the absence of
USR ministers. Given that the Saligny program is intended to provide over €10 billion
to local authorities for various development works, this move was transparently
meant to boost PM Cîțu’s standing among the party faithful in advance of the PNL
elections.

On top of this, the Constitutional Court of Romania (CCR) decided to delay the vote
on a motion of no confidence 9
brought forward on September 3 by USR and
Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR). This move arguably favored Cîțu in the
PNL leadership elections on September 25, as the delay effectively ensured that he
remained prime minister at least until the PNL leadership vote. The CCR’s intervention
raises questions about its independence and political neutrality, although eventually,
TOP
on September 28, it ruled that the motion should be debated and voted on in
Parliament. Before this could be considered, however, the Cîțu government fell on
October 5 in a separate vote brought by the PSD that recorded the highest number of
supporters for a motion of censure in more than 30 years.

Another means of influencing the PNL leader elections at the PNL congress was PM
Cîțu’s decision on September 7 to award over €18 million in new party subsidies,
although by that point in the year the political parties had generally only spent half of
their existing annual subsidies. Moreover, the fact that around 5,000 people gathered
indoors at the PNL congress, despite restrictions on gatherings and soaring rates of
COVID-19 infections, was a clear expression of how authorities could be overpowered
by the will of political leaders. Finally, in hopes of getting reinstated as prime minister
after the no-confidence motion, Cîțu, acting as interim PM, decided on October 7 to
allocate over one billion RON from the state’s reserve fund to Romanian
municipalities, disregarding any objective criteria for distributing the funds and clearly
favoring municipalities led by PNL mayors. Meanwhile, cities and towns with hundreds
of thousands of inhabitants led by USR mayors received no funding, as Cîțu blatantly
sought to take revenge on the party.

The government’s incapacity to handle the health crisis was laid bare by the relatively
low rates of vaccination in the country: by year’s end Romania’s COVID-19 vaccine
uptake rate was among the lowest in the EU. 10
This low enthusiasm for the vaccine
could be explained by the widespread distrust in state authorities as well as high rates
of skepticism and vaccine hesitancy among certain segments of the population. This
skepticism was propelled by an increasing number of vocal antivaccination
campaigners, including the newly formed AUR party. As dozens of civil society leaders
pleaded with politicians to cease all contact with AUR members, the far-right party
organized antivaccination protests, even at the height of the fourth wave of the
COVID-19 pandemic. Hence, the alliance between the progressive USR and AUR to
submit a no-confidence motion against the Cîțu government disappointed a large
share of civil society and political figures, including the country’s president, Klaus
Iohannis.

Some Romanian media played a role in diffusing conspiracy theories and distrust in
the COVID-19 vaccine. State and private media are still at risk of political and
TOP
commercial interference, especially regarding editorial content. Moreover, there is no
transparency in political party spending on media marketing, nor on TV content paid
for by political parties.
Judicial independence in Romania seemed to register positive trends in 2021, although
no concrete progress was made in dissolving the prosecutorial special section for
investigating magistrates (SIIJ), depoliticizing the CCR, or improving the stability and
predictability of legislation. A set of amendments to the three laws that govern
Romania’s justice system, necessitated by the former ruling PSD’s interference with
the judiciary and state prosecution, remained subject to parliamentary debate in 2021,
but the sheer number of amendments makes the duration and outcome of this
legislative process unpredictable. Uncertainty over long-sought improvements to the
penal and criminal procedure code are also a major challenge for the fight against
corruption. This uncertainty, as well as the lack of a national anticorruption strategy,
hampers Romania’s efforts in preventing and sanctioning corruption at all levels. In
the meantime, high-profile cases of corruption continue to come to light.

In the midst of an ongoing public health crisis, a full-blown political crisis was the last
thing the Romanian population needed, given the interim government had failed to
step up COVID-19 restrictions to contain the fourth wave of the pandemic. 11
This
last wave took over 20,000 lives, although many could have been saved if not for the
political deadlock. 12

At a Glance
In Romania, national governance is democratic yet dominated by clientelistic party
politics. Elections are free, but the accumulation of significant sums by parties in
power tilts the balance in favor of their reelection. Civil society is an active force in
supporting democracy and defending the rule of law, but there is a need for more
public consultation and support from the state. Media are relatively independent
though at risk of political pressure and self-censorship. Local governance is
democratic yet highly influenced by party politics at the national level. Judicial
independence has seen positive developments over recent years, but concerns persist
about legislative predictability, coherence, and stability. Some efforts to stamp out
corruption have been sustained. However, the country clearly needs a well-resourced,
stand-alone strategy to fight corruption at all levels of society.
TOP

National Democratic Governance

1.00-7.00 pts

Considers the democratic character of the governmental system; and the

independence, effectiveness, and accountability of the legislative and
4.25
executive branches. / 7.00

On January 29, a fire killed 17 patients at a COVID-19 hospital in the Romanian

capital Bucharest. 13
It was the second deadly hospital fire in the country in
under three months 14
(and not the last one of 2021 15
). This, along with the
alleged mismanagement of the COVID-19 crisis, drove the Social Democratic
Party (PSD) to initiate a simple motion of no confidence against the Minister of
Health, Vlad Voiculescu (USR), on February 17. The motion failed, but after a
series of controversies in the public health sector, Prime Minister Florin Cîțu
fired Voiculescu and the secretary of state in the Ministry of Health, Andreea
Moldovan, on April 14. 16
The copresident of USR and Deputy Prime Minister
Dan Barna criticized the move as “politically unilateral and immature” and
declared that his party no longer supported Cîțu as prime minister. 17
Following
Barna’s refusal to take over the Ministry of Health, Cîțu himself became the
health minister on an interim basis. Although a new minister of health, proposed
by USR, was sworn in on April 21, 18
the incident marked the beginning of the
erosion of trust between USR and Cîțu.
On May 26, Parliament voted on the law to ratify the EU Council Decision (EU,
Euratom) 2020/2053 of 14 December 2020, a measure enabling the pandemic
economic recovery instrument proposed by the European Commission to be
made operational. Casting aside their differences, PNL, PSD, and USR deputies
voted to ratify the measure, while deputies and senators from Alliance for the
Union of Romanians (AUR) announced they were leaving the plenary before the
vote. In total, Romania is to receive €29.2 billion from the instrument. On
September 27, following the visit of European Commission president Ursula von
der Leyen to Bucharest, the commission greenlit Romania’s Recovery and
Resilience Plan (PNRR) for the funds. 19
On June 15, a simple motion of no confidence 20
against the Minister of
Investments and European Projects, Cristian Ghinea (USR), was rejected. In the
motion, the Social Democrats reproached the minister for blocking the
absorption of funds for local authorities and “indebting” the country with 15
billion euros through the PNRR, claiming that the money taken through TOP
the
recovery plan is “only to feed friends, consultancy firms, and party members
who will vote in the PNL and USR congresses.” 21
PSD and AUR deputies
wrongly accused USR and PNL of rigging the vote by including votes cast from
electronic tablets, which is normally allowed only for normative acts. 22
On
June 23, PSD submitted a no-confidence motion against the Cîțu government
accusing it of endangering Romanians’ economic well-being and supporting
“catastrophic reforms” through the country’s PNRR, 23
in spite of the fact that
PSD had voted on May 26 to adopt the PNRR. The no-confidence motion failed
on June 29 after the leaders of PNL and USR refused to permit their deputies to
vote. 24
In August, news surfaced of Florin Cîțu’s conviction in the United States for
drunk driving in December 2001. 25
Moreover, on July 21, 2008, Cîțu was sued in
an Iowa court for an unpaid debt of $6,698.73 on a credit card from Maryland
National Bank. 26
In response to the news, Cîțu refused to even contemplate
the prospect of resigning from his position as head of government, 27
further
eroding the trust of his political peers.
September was marked by a political crisis between the governing parties PNL
and USR. The crisis started on September 1 when PM Cîțu invoked a government
meeting to approve the Anghel Saligny National Investment Program, a local
development program (see “Local Democratic Governance”). USR-PLUS
boycotted the meeting on the grounds that the Saligny program represented
“the biggest robbery of Romanian money.” 28
Later that day, Cîțu ousted
Justice Minister Stelian Ion (USR) for blocking the program, as well as for failing
to abolish the Section for Investigating Criminal Offenses in the Judiciary (SIIJ)
(see “Judicial Framework and Independence”). 29
In response, USR and AUR
submitted a motion of no confidence against the Cîțu government on
September 3. In the motion, the two parties argued that the Saligny program is
“just a party piggy bank” with no clear criteria for project selection, monitoring,
and auditing. 30
They also made reference to what they viewed as Cîțu’s lack of
moral legitimacy given the charges he faced in the U.S.
The Saligny program was approved in the absence of USR-PLUS ministers on
September 3 through the Government Emergency Ordinance (OUG) 95/2021.
There were no arguments supporting the urgency to approve the Saligny
program by emergency ordinance 31
other than PM Cîțu’s wish to influence the
vote for his party’s presidency, 32
which he won on September 25 (see TOP
“Electoral Process”). The high number of OUGs adopted by the government in
2021 (no fewer than 145 33
) raised concerns over their legal certainty and
legislative quality as well as the separation of powers in the country.
Later, on September 7, all USR ministers resigned, and on September 8, Cîțu
dismissed all secretaries of state, prefects, and subprefects that had been named
by USR. 34
On September 8, Cîțu filed a complaint to the Constitutional Court of Romania
(CCR) challenging the constitutionality of the motion of no confidence initiated
by USR-PLUS and AUR. The CCR announced it would rule on the
constitutionality of the motion on September 28, which significantly delayed the
vote in Parliament and indirectly favored the election of Cîțu to PNL leadership
on September 27. Ultimately, the CCR admitted Cîțu’s complaint regarding a legal
conflict between Parliament and the government arising from procedural
misconduct in initiating the motion of no confidence. Yet, at the same time, the
court also ruled in favor of debating and voting on the motion of censure in
Parliament. 35
Meanwhile, PSD also submitted a motion of censure on September 28 (adopted
on October 5) that led to Cîțu’s dismissal with the highest number of votes
recorded in the last 30 years for such a motion. 36
The Cîțu government’s fall
touched off weeks of political intrigue as President Klaus Iohannis and the
parties represented in Parliament worked to form a new government and avoid
fresh elections.
As part of the new governing deal between PNL, PSD, and UDMR, on November
23, Florin Cîțu was elected president of the Senate (upper house of Parliament),
37
and the leader of PSD, Ion-Marcel Ciolacu, 38
was elected president of the

lower house , the Chamber of Deputies. Moreover, former prime minister Sorin
Grindeanu (PSD) took the position of Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of
Transport and Infrastructure. Grindeanu, who was Romania’s head of
government for six months in 2017, managed to trigger the country’s largest
post-revolution protests with the adoption of the emergency ordinance OUG13
for the amnesty for criminal offenses. 39
Grindeanu also goes down in history
as the first prime minister to be ousted by a motion of no confidence by his own
party. 40
The incoming government of Nicolae Ciucă also nominated the
controversial 41
former mayor of Bucharest, Gabriela Firea, as head of the
newly created Ministry of Family and Youth and the only woman proposed TOPas
minister in the new cabinet. Firea is a strong supporter of the traditional family,
does not agree with providing sex education in school without parental consent,
and seeks to increase the birth rate in Romania. 42
This raises public concerns
that Romania may follow the conservative path taken by Poland and Hungary.
Electoral Process
1.00-7.00 pts

Examines national executive and legislative elections, the electoral

framework, the functioning of multiparty systems, and popular 4.75
participation in the political process. / 7.00

No national executive or legislative elections were held in Romania in 2021, but

several by-elections held on the local level revealed that old habits die hard.
Numerous cases of electoral fraud were reported and substantiated; the police
opened criminal proceedings over accusations of bribery in some cases, and in
others, candidates had asked citizens to photograph their ballots, for which the
voters were subsequently fined. 43
Parliamentary elections had been held on December 5–6, 2020. 44
On January
17, 2021, the think tank Expert Forum published a report on the poll, which
highlights that, due to the late promulgation of the law stipulating the date of
the elections, several key regulations were also published late and
communicated ineffectively, leading to instability and uncertainty over the
implementation of the election schedule. Moreover, while the authorities’ efforts
to enable quarantined and isolated citizens to vote were more visible than in the
preceeding local elections, there were problems using the special ballot box and
protective masks. The report also indicated that transparency was significantly
diminished since meetings of constituency electoral offices were not made
public, while the Central Electoral Office (BEC) rejected requests from civil
society organizations to publish the minutes from these meetings. 45
In February, the Permanent Electoral Authority (AEP) reported that it had
carried out no less than 3,396 control actions in 2019–20 on candidates, political
parties, and natural or legal persons. 46
This effort covered the European
parliamentary elections of 2019, the national referendum in 2019, and the local
elections of 2020. While all political parties were fined, sometimes as much as
€13,000 per infraction, PNL received cumulatively the highest sanctions with an
estimated €90,000 in fines for issues pertaining to campaign expenditures. 47
Elections for PNL leadership, held on September 25, were marked by numerous
TOP
voting irregularities. The media captured two people entering a polling booth
simultaneously, while some voters photographed their ballots and ID cards as
proof they had voted a certain way. 48
Moreover, the police fined PNL 10,000
RON (about €2,000) for not observing COVID-19 public health measures. 49
 The fact that the party congress brought together some 5,000 people passed
unnoticed by government authorities, although restrictions in force at the time
50
stipulated a maximum of 200 people for private indoor events with all

guests holding the COVID-19 Green Pass. 51

The Prefecture of Bucharest
justified this violation on the grounds that no government decision 52
regarding
the COVID-19 state of alert had made explicit reference to the word “congress,”
implying that such activities were not envisioned by the provisions in force. 53
This appears to have been a blatant abuse of power by PM Cîțu, who interpreted
COVID-19 measures to suit his personal interests, endangering public health in
order to get elected to his party’s leadership.
On September 7, PM Cîțu announced the allocation of an extra RON 90 million
(about €18.2 million) in political party subsidies from the state budget in spite of
having previously promised to cut the subsidy granted to parties. 54
Given that
political parties had spent only half of the subsidies received in the first six
months of the year, 55
it was hard to justify this sudden increase as anything
other than an attempt to boost Cîțu’s chances of winning the PNL leadership
and potentially even the parliamentary no-confidence vote. Moreover, PNL and
PSD were the biggest beneficiaries of these new subsidies. The accumulation of
significant sums by political parties up to 2024, the date of the next
parliamentary elections, represents a danger to the fairness in electoral
campaigns, especially for any new parties or forces, with an inevitable negative
impact on democratic competition. 56
In February, AUR proposed an
amendment to Law 334/2006 on the financing of political parties and electoral
campaigns, asking for the repeal of legal provisions by which the state subsidizes
political parties. This proposal was rejected in the Senate in June. 57
On September 20, Radio Free Europe published results of an investigation into
political party spending, particularly by PNL, PSD, and USR. Evidently, over the
past five years, parties have collectively received more than one billion RON
from the state budget, but only USR has published information regarding how
these funds were used.

Civil Society
1.00-7.00 pts
TOP
Assesses the organizational capacity and financial sustainability of the civic
sector; the legal and political environment in which it operates; the 5.50
functioning of trade unions; interest group participation in the policy
/ 7.00
process; and the threat posed by antidemocratic extremist groups.
Civil society organizations (CSOs) have played an active role in defending the
rule of law in Romania. 58
However, the country’s civic space is considered to be
relatively narrow by international observers such as the European Commission
and CIVICUS. 59
Despite the supportive legislative framework for civil society, mandatory
consultation procedures prior to the adoption of normative acts are seen as
perfunctory: the number of public consultations and impact assessments
remains limited, and the few bills that are subject to public consultation do not
tend to have a major budgetary impact. 60
Moreover, the COVID-19 pandemic
has had a negative impact on the rights to freedom of assembly and association
of CSOs, as is the case throughout Europe. 61
On January 4, the Law on Measures for Preventing and Combating Antigypsyism
62
entered into force. This is an important development for the protection of

the Roma ethnic minority, which accounts for up to 10 percent of Romania’s

population yet experiences discrimination and is distrusted by 7 out of 10
Romanians. 63
On February 3, several Romanian intellectuals and dozens of civil society leaders
sent a letter to the PNL, UDMR, and USR asking government representatives to
cease all contact with the far-right political party AUR. The petition
characterized AUR as a radical-populist party, with fundamentalist and
nationalist themes, that promotes anti-globalist and anti-individualist notions
and conspiracy theories while spreading ideas of the extreme right. 64
On March 29, more than 1,000 people protested in Bucharest and several other
cities against restrictions aimed at limiting the spread of COVID-19. The
demonstrations were mainly organized by AUR, which supported anti-
vaccination protests. 65
More demonstrations took place on May 31, when
people requested a suspension of the vaccination campaign for people under 18
years old on the grounds that there was not enough information about any
possible adverse impacts of the vaccine. 66
On October 2, at the height of the
devastating fourth wave of the pandemic in Romania, AUR gathered thousands
of protesters in Bucharest to demonstrate against the government’s COVID-19
TOP
restrictions. 67
Some of these protests turned violent, with many police officers
injured and hundreds of protesters investigated for vandalism or for breaking
COVID-19 measures. 68
 On July 27, after almost 20 years of some of the most diversified and effective
forms of protest in Romania, the Roșia Montană mining site became a protected
UNESCO World Heritage Site. 69
A European Parliament resolution proposing that LGBT+ families and same-sex
couples should have equal freedoms of movement and the same family
reunification rights in all EU countries, adopted on September 14, has divided
Romanian politicians into two camps: those supporting the traditional family and
those advocating equal rights for all. Only 6 Romanians in the European
Parliament supported the resolution—all MEPs from USR—while 18 opposed it,
mainly MEPs from PNL and PSD. Given that the resolution said that Romania
should be sanctioned for failing to update legislation on same-sex couples, the
USR members were accused by other Romanian MEPs of voting against Romania
and of “aligning with neo-Marxism.” 70
Currently, same-sex marriages are not
recognized in Romania, and the country’s civil code limits civil marriage to
people of the opposite sex. In 2021, the advocacy group ILGA-Europe ranked
Romania twenty-fifth in the EU for LGBT+ rights protection, just above Latvia
and Poland. 71
On September 17, journalists and environmental activists filming a documentary
on illegal logging in Suceava, in the north of the country, were beaten with sticks
and axes by a group of 20 individuals. 72
This attack joined a long line of serious
events that have endangered civic space and press freedoms, and encourage
illegal logging. A series of NGOs appealed to the Minister of Interior to take
emergency measures regarding the violence in Suceava and to step up efforts to
combat illegal logging. 73

Independent Media
1.00-7.00 pts

Examines the current state of press freedom, including libel laws,

harassment of journalists, and editorial independence; the operation of a 3.50
financially viable and independent private press; and the functioning of the
/ 7.00
public media.

Across the country, there were increasing signs of the use of Strategic Lawsuits
TOP
Against Public Participation (SLAPPs), whereby politicians, 74
church officials,
75
or businesspersons with links to the state 76
sue well-established

newsrooms of investigative journalists—such as Recorder, RISE, or Libertatea—

 to stifle legitimate criticism through the abuse of existing laws, most notably
defamation laws.
The activity of the National Audiovisual Council (CNA), the state media
regulator, was interrupted between February 10 and May 11 77
because four
senior positions were left vacant and could only be filled with parliamentary
approval. Concerns regarding the regulator’s financial and budgetary viability
have persisted since 2020. 78
The 2021 Rule of Law Report published by the European Commission on July 20,
notes that transparency of media ownership continues to be incomplete, while
state funding (a key source of media sector financing) raises concerns over
editorial autonomy. 79
Moreover, the state funds allocated in 2020 80
to
support media during the COVID-19 pandemic have been criticized for favoring
larger outlets and being conducive to clickbait as well as for increasing the risk
of political pressure and self-censorship. 81
Aside from the European
Commission, external observers like the Center for Media Pluralism and Media
Freedom 82
and Reporters Without Borders have also sounded alarms about
the state of media freedom in Romania. 83
On September 16, the Romanian Union of Journalists MediaSind appealed to the
authorities to urgently implement the European Commission’s
recommendations on the protection of journalists, and called on the
Commission to rapidly set up a mechanism to monitor the ways in which EU
Member States ensure the protection of journalists as well as public access to
information of public interest. 84
Radio Free Europe revealed that in 2021 almost 25 million RON (about €5
million) of the state subsidy given to political parties was used for press
promotion and propaganda. Here, there is the further important issue of
transparency: TV channels insufficiently informed their audiences about the
distinction between different types of content, especially between their own
editorial content and airtime bought by political parties, and to signal who is
paying for such content. 85

Local Democratic Governance

1.00-7.00 pts
TOP
Considers the decentralization of power; the responsibilities, election, and
capacity of local governmental bodies; and the transparency and 4.25
accountability of local authorities. / 7.00
On January 27, the government approved the amendment OUG 57/2019 to the
administrative code regarding the status of prefects 86
and subprefects,
allowing these positions to be classified as “offices of public dignity” 87
and
their holders to be party members. 88
Previously, Romanian law did not allow a
prefect to belong to a political party, and to qualify for such a position, the
candidate had to be a public-sector employee. 89
The politicization of prefects
brings more instability from the national to the local level, as was the case in
September when PM Cîțu dismissed all prefects and subprefects who were
named by USR (see “National Democratic Governance”).
On June 27, partial local elections took place in 36 localities where incumbent or
former mayors were either deceased or unable to hold office due to criminal
proceedings. While the leaders of PNL and PSD both claimed victory, 90
PSD
won 17 mandates, PNL 15, UDMR 1, and 2 mandates were won by independent
candidates. 91
On July 23, the Prefecture of Bucharest imposed a state of alert in Sector 1 of
the capital due to high amounts of uncollected waste. Sanitation operator,
Romprest, had stopped collecting waste on grounds that the administration of
Sector 1 had not paid its bills. Clotilde Armand, mayor of Sector 1, accused
Romprest of blackmailing her administration, issuing bills with “unjustifiably high
and illegal tariffs,” and failing to honor contractual obligations that were already
paid. 92
The situation was proof of the inability of many local administrations to
defend against abusive and illegal practices of state-contracted providers.
On September 26, two local referendums were organized in Buzau 93
and
Brasov 94
counties. Both were historic firsts for the counties yet failed due to
insufficient turnout, 95
showcasing a lack of citizen participation in local
governance matters.
The race for PNL leadership saw two candidates, former PM Ludovic Orban and
then-PM Florin Cîțu, make competing promises to local elected representatives
in exchange for their support, including pension entitlements and extra funding
for municipalities. At the time, PNL counted 1,250 mayors, whose votes at the
party congress on September 25 turned out to be crucial. While Orban
positioned himself in favor of keeping mayors’ special pensions, 96
CîțuTOP
won the
hearts of local leaders through the adoption on September 3 of the Saligny
program, an initiative that would provide some 50 billion RON to local
authorities over the next few years for water and sewage projects, gas networks,
and road construction. 97
 The Saligny program is meant to replace the National Local Development
Program (PNDL) launched by PSD in 2015. The PNDL program has been widely
criticized for the corrupt ways in which contracts were awarded and
implemented as well as for their poor standards and wildly inflated prices. 98
Representatives from the civic sector and politics have already criticized the
Saligny program for repeating many of the same mechanisms of the PNDL and
for ignoring some of the shortcomings of its predecessor program that have
been identified by the Court of Auditors and independent monitoring reports.
99
Moreover, while the goals of the Saligny program are in the public interest,

this alone fails to justify the haste with which PM Cîțu adopted it. 100
On top of the Saligny program, Cîțu decided on October 7—after the motion of
no confidence against him had been adopted—to allocate more than one billion
RON to municipalities from the state’s reserve fund. However, it seems that the
way in which this money was allocated to administrative-territorial units was
arbitrary, strictly based on political criteria, and reminiscent of the period when
former PSD leader Liviu Dragnea would distribute public funds among party
insiders and supporters. Out of 41 cities and sectors led by USR mayors, only 5
received funds from the government, leaving cities with hundreds of thousands
of inhabitants, such as Alba Iulia, Bacau, Brasov, Sectors 1 and 2 of Bucharest, and
Timișoara, with no funding. 101
A Radio Free Europe analysis showed that PSD
was also disadvantaged in the distribution of funds, with cities led by the party
receiving only about 25 percent of the amount allocated even though PSD has
the largest number of mayors. 102
Winners in this split were cities with PNL
leadership, but also Covasna, Harghita, and Mureș where UDMR is strong. 103
The lack of medical infrastructure and personnel, especially in rural areas, has
contributed to the failure of the country’s vaccination campaign, given that
about 44 percent of Romania’s population lives in rural areas. 104

Judicial Framework and Independence

1.00-7.00 pts

Assesses constitutional and human rights protections, judicial

independence, the status of ethnic minority rights, guarantees of equality 4.25
before the law, treatment of suspects and prisoners, and compliance with
TOP
/ 7.00
judicial decisions.
In the latest Cooperation and Verification 105
(CVM) report regarding Romania’s
judicial independence, issued on July 20, the European Commission concluded
that a strong and renewed impetus had been given to reform this area and
reverse the backsliding that had been registered between 2017 and 2019. 106
While the CVM benchmarks have seen a “clear positive trend,” 107
some
problems persist. The report criticized, among other issues, the behavior of the
Constitutional Court of Romania (CCR) in interpreting EU court decisions, the
unexplained delay of several key reforms, and the staffing crisis in the judiciary.
The Commission also raised concerns regarding the stability and predictability of
legislation, as acts are frequently amended and, as a result, laws can come to
contradict one another. 108
The 2021 CVM report once again explicitly asked Romanian authorities to abolish
the prosecutorial Section for Investigating Criminal Offenses in the Judiciary
(SIIJ). 109
Indeed, this was one of the key issues that was supposed to be
addressed by the Romanian government in 2021; nevertheless, the Special
Section 110
is still in place and fully operational. In its ruling of May 18, the Court
of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) concluded that the section resembles
an instrument of political pressure 111
that could intervene to change the course
of certain criminal investigations or judicial proceedings concerning, inter alia,
high-level corruption. 112
However, the CJEU left it to the national courts to
actually invalidate the SIIJ. 113
On June 7, the Pitesti Court of Appeal was the first to apply the ruling of the
CJEU, declaring the existence of the SIIJ as unjustified by objective and verifiable
requirements pertaining to the sound administration of justice and therefore
lacking the authority to investigate cases brought before it. 114
However, on
June 8, the CCR ruled that the SIIJ is constitutional and its abolition may only be
decided by Parliament. Moreover, the CCR warned ordinary court judges that
they cannot apply the CJEU decision to the detriment of CCR decisions.
Basically, the Constitutional Court ruled 115
that domestic law is stronger than
EU law, 116
setting up a potential confrontation with the EU.
In February, Parliament rejected a proposal to examine the draft law on the
dissolution of the SIIJ through an emergency parliamentary procedure, thus
TOP
respecting the results of the May 2019 referendum whereby a majority of
citizens voted in support of banning the use of emergency ordinances in the
area of justice. 117
In March, the Ministry of Justice launched a public debate on the draft law on
the protection of whistle-blowers in the public interest, 118
which transposes
Directive (EU) 2019/1937 on the protection of persons reporting breaches of EU
law. In its current form, the draft law seems to not exclude whistle-blowers who
leak information directly to the press and preclude the possibility of carrying out
inquiries in the case of anonymous whistle-blowing. 119
The deadline for the
transposition of the directive was December 17, 2021. 120
Questions regarding the integrity of the legal system and judicial reform were
also at the heart of the political crisis that divided the ruling coalition in
September. PM Cîțu’s dismissal of Minister of Justice Stelian Ion (USR) was
pinned on Ion’s inability to dismantle the SIIJ. 121
In March, the Chamber of
Deputies adopted the bill on the abolition of the SIIJ but with several
amendments, including one proposed by UDMR that would have granted super-
immunity to magistrates. 122
Following Ion’s solicitation, the Venice Commission
said in July that the amendments adopted in the Chamber of Deputies raised
questions about content and procedure, and recommended that these
amendments be removed completely. 123
Coalition leaders were supposed to
agree on a timetable for abolishing the SIIJ in extraordinary session, as well as on
the final form of the draft law abolishing it, but discussions were blocked
ultimately by various UDMR proposals for amendments as well as the political
crisis in the governing coalition. 124
The new coalition led by Nicolae Ciucă has
set a deadline of March 31, 2022, for abolition of the SIIJ. 125
In March, a full set of amendments to the three justice laws was sent to the
Superior Council of Magistracy (CSM), the judiciary’s self-governing body, for an
opinion but are still the subject of debate and public consultation. Civil society
representatives criticized that the judicial reforms were proposed for approval in
their entirety despite totaling around 550 articles, each subject to parliamentary
debate and possible further amendments. 126
This makes it difficult to predict
the duration and outcome of the legislative process through which the three
justice laws are amended. 127
Moreover, the Expert Forum think tank considers
some of the proposed legislative solutions to be problematic or insufficiently
explained, or that they may incorrectly transpose decisions of the CCR or could
TOP
create difficulties in practice. 128
For example, the procedure for appointing the
Prosecutor General and the Chief Prosecutors of the National Anticorruption
Directorate (DNA) and the Directorate for Investigating Organized Crime and
Terrorism (DIICOT) 129
is amended by introducing the assent of the Section of
 Prosecutors of the CSM. This raises constitutionality issues and creates a major
imbalance in the appointment procedure, giving de facto full power to the CSM,
contrary to the jurisprudence of the CCR. The CSM would thus become the
main actor in criminal matters, which exceeds its constitutional role. 130

Corruption
1.00-7.00 pts

Looks at public perceptions of corruption, the business interests of top

policymakers, laws on financial disclosure and conflict of interest, and the 4.00
efficacy of anticorruption initiatives. / 7.00

In 2021, one of then-PM Cîțu’s commitments was to adopt a new National Anti-
Corruption Strategy for 2021–25, including measures aimed at preventing
corruption, promoting organizational integrity and anticorruption education, as
well as procedures for recovering losses generated by the commission of
crimes. On July 28, the Ministry of Justice launched a period of public debate on
the draft government decision approving the new strategy, 131
which had not
been adopted by year’s end.
In the 2021 Rule of Law Report published on July 20, the European Commission
noted that experts and business leaders still perceive a high level of corruption
in the Romanian public sector. 132
In Transparency International’s 2021
Corruption Perceptions Index, Romania had a score of 45/100, placing it twenty-
fifth in the EU and sixty-sixth globally. 133
This perception has remained relatively
stable over the last five years.
Uncertainty over the investigation, prosecution, and sanctioning of high-level
corruption, particularly on the admissibility of evidence, remains a major
challenge in the fight against corruption. 134
This uncertainty has had a negative
influence over the work of the National Anticorruption Directorate (DNA),
which had to restart at least 67 investigations to comply with a CCR decision of
April 6 regarding the investigation of disjoined cases. 135
In the spring, investigative journalists from the media platform Recorder
published a report showing how several heads of forestry directorates across
the country had been changed through a blackmail campaign coordinated TOP
from
the top of the Ministry of Environment. 136
Similar practices were discovered at
the National Administration “Romanian Waters.” 137
This was further proof that
the politicization of public institutions continues and is being directed from the
highest levels. Officials ousted through blackmail campaigns were replaced by
politically connected directors who handed out contracts to firms that were
associated with political parties. To recover the cost of bribes, these firms
accordingly overvalue the work undertaken. 138
On March 3, former Senate President Călin Popescu-Tăriceanu was indicted by
DNA prosecutors in a corruption case in which he is accused of receiving
material benefits worth some $800,000 from representatives of an Austrian
company in 2007–08, while he was prime minister. 139
In another case, a
prosecutor from the Prosecutor General’s Office asked judges of the High Court
of Cassation and Justice on November 9 to acquit Popescu-Tăriceanu for abuse
of office and complicity in misuse of official capacity, almost a year after he was
sent to trial. 140
Popescu-Tăriceanu was accused in December 2020 of failing to
put to a vote in the Senate plenary the termination of the mandate of Senator
Cristian Marciu, even though a final court decision declared Marciu
“incompatible” and no longer able to hold office. 141
The court adjourned the
case until December 7, 2021, when it acquitted both Popescu-Tăriceanu and
Marciu. 142
In May, an amendment allowing for electronic submission of assets and interests
disclosures became operational. This should facilitate the work of the National
Integrity Agency (ANI) in investigating conflicts of interest or unjustified wealth.
143
However, ANI faces a leadership deficit given that the presidency has been

vacant since 2019 and the vice-presidency since 2021. 144

On May 17, DNA prosecutors indicted Liviu Dragnea, former PSD president, in
connection with his January 2017 visit to the United States to attend Donald
Trump’s presidential inauguration. 145
Dragnea is accused of influence peddling.
While serving a sentence of 3.5 years for the case of “fictitious employment” at
Teleorman Child Protection Service, 146
he was given a conditional release by
the Giurgiu Court on July 15 after having spent only 781 days in prison. 147
On June 14, the DNA closed the European funds fraud case concerning former
USR deputy prime minister Dan Barna for lack of evidence. 148
The case was
opened in the middle of the 2020 presidential campaign while Barna was a
candidate. TOP
On July 8, Recorder published an investigation presenting compelling evidence
of how the forestry administration had systematically—and illegally—felled oaks
and other valuable trees in a “forest hygiene” operations meant to clear
woodlands of dry timber. The Ministry of Environment’s investigation
 undertaken in response spoke of a “destructuring” of forests administered by
the Muntenia Forestry Office, in violation of the most basic forestry rules, and
proposed drastic sanctions against the forestry administration. 149
On September 21, the DNA announced it had opened a criminal file into how
Romania had purchased doses of COVID-19 vaccine since the start of the
vaccination rollout under the auspices of the EU’s vaccine strategy. The criminal
prosecution will assess whether abuse of office took place or any actor obtained
undue advantage. 150
On September 22, the DNA began the criminal prosecution of then-PM Cîțu for
abuse of office. The decision was taken after a document on government
letterhead was made public in which advisors employed in the executive branch
were consulted on Cîțu’s political strategy in the internal struggle for the
leadership of the National Liberal Party. 151

Author: Claudia Badulescu is a PhD Researcher in Political and Social Sciences at the
European University Institute (EUI) where she is studying Europeanization of post-
communist public administrations from the CEE and the Western Balkans. At EUI,
Badulescu has worked on a variety of international research projects, including the
Horizon 2020 project InDivEU, the ERC Synergy program SOLID , the POLCON
project, and the euandi 2019 project. Previously, she worked as a Senior Project
Manager at France’s ENA, where she had a leading role in the management of
international projects supporting administrative reform in Eastern Europe and the
Middle East.

Footnotes
1 Cristian Gherasim, “Romania reaches historic high in Covid deaths”, EUobserver, 5
November 2021, https://euobserver.com/coronavirus/153428
2 “October 2021 Annual inflation up to 4.1% in the euro area Up to 4.4% in the EU”, Eurostat
131/2021, 17 November 2021, https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/documents/2995521/11563383/2-
17112021-AP-…
3 Sourced from: Worldometer, COVID-19 CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC, TOP
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
4 The Romanian health system had been under sustained pressure since long before the
COVID-19 pandemic, being historically plagued by corruption, inefficiency and politicized
leadership. However, the COVID-19 crisis pushed the health system to its limits and showed
its incapacity to deal with the high influx of patients. To date, eleven fires were recorded at
 public hospitals since the onset of the pandemic, which resulted in dozens of deaths and
catastrophic injuries. “Ard spitalele României. Lista neagră a tragediilor: 11 incendii în mai
puţin de un an” [Romania's hospitals are burning. Black list of tragedies: 11 fires in less than a
year], Adevarul, 11 November 2021, https://adevarul.ro/news/eveniment/ard-spitalele-
romaniei-lista-neagra-…
5 “Romania to get a government for Christmas”, Euractiv, 22 December 2020,
https://www.euractiv.com/section/elections/news/romania-to-get-a-govern…

More footnotes

On Romania
See all data, scores & information on this country or territory.
See More

Country Facts

Global Freedom Score

83
/100
Free

In Other Reports
Freedom in the World 2022

Other Years

2021

Be the first to know what's happening.

TOP
Join the Freedom House monthly newsletter
Email
 Subscribe

ADDRESS GENERAL INQUIRIES

info@freedomhouse.org
1850 M St. NW Floor 11

Washington, DC 20036 PRESS & MEDIA

(202) 296-5101 press@freedomhouse.org

@2022 FreedomHouse

TOP