Preliminary assessment of the first payment request of Romania

agreement and the financing agreement together with MIPE, and specifies the activities that the audit authority shall perform as part of its mandate for national recovery and resilience plan. Milestone 450 on the establishment of a repository system is also connected to this measure. Evidence Provided:

In line with the verification mechanism, the following evidence was provided by the Romanian authorities: 1. Copy of the publication of the Government Emergency Ordinance no. 124 of 13 December 2021, enacting the legal mandate of the Ministry of Investments and European Project (MIPE), the Ministry of Finance (MoF) and the Audit Authority (AA), published in the Official Gazette no. 1178 of 14 December 2021, which according to the Romanian legislation entered into force on the day of its publication in the Official Gazette. 2. Copy of the Law no. 178 of 9 June 2022, published in the Official Gazette no. 576 of 14 June 2022 approving the Government Emergency Ordinance no. 124 of 13 December 2021, enacting the legal mandate of the MIPE, MoF and the Audit Authority (AA), published in the Official Gazette no. 1178 of 14 December 2021. 3. Summary document justifying how the milestone (including all constitutive elements) was

satisfactorily fulfilled.

The authorities also provided:

4. a notification letter (on 30 May 2022) on the institutional framework (Ares(2022)4418949) outlining certain amendments to the Romanian Recovery and Resilience plan and 5. a copy of the publication of the Government Emergency Ordinance no. 70 of 26 May 2022 on prevention, verification and detection of irregularities/double financing, serious irregularities in obtaining and using the funds allocated under the RRF, published in the Official Gazette no. 526 of 27 May 2022. 6. Protocol concluded between MIPE and the National Agency of Integrity (ANI), with subsequent amendments (Ares(2022)4797267), (2022)5561693) and (2022)5570064). Analysis:

The evidence provided by the Romanian authorities addresses the description of the reform in the CID Annex as follows:

Entry into force of a Government Ordinance enacting the institutional framework for the national recovery and resilience plan and the activities carried out by the constituent institutions entrusting MIPE the power and mandate to exercise all the tasks of monitoring, verification, control and recovery, drawing up and signing payment applications submitted to the European Commission, the management declaration and the audit summary. The same framework shall also entrust MoF with the duties in relation to the signing of the loan agreement and the financing agreement together with MIPE, and also to specify the activities that the audit authority shall perform as part of its mandate for national recovery and resilience plan. The evidence submitted by Romania demonstrates that the Government Emergency Ordinance no. 124 of 13 December 2021 (hereafter GEO 124/2021) has entered into force on 14 December 2021, the date of its publication in the Official Gazette, in accordance with art. 12(2) of the Law 24 of 27 March 2000 on rules of legislative technique for the preparation of normative acts, version updated,

published in the Official Gazette no. 260 of 21 April 2010.

GEO 124/2021 together with the provisions of GEO 70/2022 and the special legislation mentioned above suitably establishes the institutional and financial framework for the management of the national recovery and resilience plan, while outlining the control and audit mechanism and defining

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