Preliminary assessment of the first payment request of Romania

(…) b) collect, store and ensure access to the data required by Article 22(2)(d)(i) to (iii) of the RRF Regulation.

As regards the collection and storage of the data as requested by Art. 22(2)(d) of the RRF Regulation (EU) 2021/241 (hereinafter the RRF Regulation), the audit report confirmed the collection and storage of all required data at the moment of the final report (i.e. 30 May 2022), with the following exceptions:

       The collection of the name of the final recipient for contracts other than public procurement
(the Romanian authorities had 30 days from the date of the audit to implement this
recommendation). However, in the meeting of 9 June 2022 [Ares(2022)4687164], the AA confirmed
that this is more an IT functionality (field) issue, and confirmed that these data are currently
collected by the implementing bodies;
       As regards the capacity of the system to collect and store the information required under Art.
22(2)(d)(iii) of the RRF Regulation, the AA confirmed that the system allows the storage of these
data, but such data are not yet inserted into the system because financing contracts and
procurement contracts generating these types of data had not been signed at the moment of the
report, for the milestones and targets included in the first payment request.
       As regards the collection of the information required under Art. 22(2)(d)(iii) of the RRF
Regulation, i.e. beneficial owner data, the integrated monitoring and control system used for RRF

(e_SMC) will extract these data from the National Trade Registry (hereinafter the ONRC) database based on a Protocol signed on 25 May 2022.

Access to data required by Article 22(2)(d) of the RRF Regulation is confirmed for the national coordinator (MIPE), reform and investment coordinators and AA (based on user functions). So far, several institutions have already access and inserted data into the system and requests for access are approved on a continuous basis. The Romanian authorities have also confirmed that the Commission, the European Public Prosecutor Office, the European Court of Auditors and the European Anti-Fraud Office will be granted access to the data, upon request.

To verify whether the system is capable of performing the functions as required by the milestone, notably concerning the collection and storage of data as required under Art. 22(2)(d)(iii) of the RRF Regulation, the Commission requested information on 21 contracts (at the moment of the checks Romania confirmed that only these contracts had been concluded). The control carried out by the Commission confirmed that the system is able to collect and store data on contractors, subcontractors and to some extent on beneficial owners based on the Protocol signed on 25 May 2022 with the ONRC. However, Romania was not able to provide (complete) information on beneficial owners for contracts where there are foreign beneficial owners.

To improve this system for the future, MIPE adopted instructions to reform/investment coordinators on 30 August 2022 so that before signing the contract they verify the completeness of the data in the e-SMC by interrogating the system using the unique tax registration code (CUI)2. The applicants are under the obligation to declare these data to National Trade Registry (ONRC) in accordance with applicable rules as regulated by Law no. 315/2021 of 28 December 2021 amending Law no. 129/2019 on preventing and combating money laundering and terrorist financing and amending

2 According to art. 8, para. 1 of Law no. 359/2004, with subsequent amendments, upon registration of a company, a registration certificate is issued which entails the order number from the trade register and the unique tax registration code (CUI) assigned by the Ministry of Public Finance.

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