Preliminary assessment of the first payment request of Romania

investments both at the level of major and minor projects. There shall be a transitional period of 3 years during which C.N.A.I.R. and C.N.I.R. shall run investment projects in parallel until C.N.I.R. is fully operational and all major investment projects shall be in the management of the C.N.I.R;

As provided by Article 4 of the Government Emergency Order no. 55/2016, “C.N.A.I.R. has as its principal activity: maintenance, repair, management and operation of motorways, express roads, national roads, bypasses and other road infrastructure elements defined in accordance with the law, for the purpose of safe road traffic [...]”. Given that that Law no. 50/2021 does not modify this article, it can be reasonably concluded that all tasks related to road maintenance, including to the existing investments, both at the level of major and minor projects, are retained by C.N.A.I.R.

Article 64 of Law no. 50/2021 provides without ambiguity that the transfer of road transport infrastructure projects for the development of transport infrastructure shall be transferred from C.N.A.I.R. to C.N.I.R. within a period of 3 years.

Additionally, Article 77 of Law no. 50/2021 provides that:  “(1) Until the projects under implementation have been completed or all the projects specified in the Order of the Minister for Transport and Infrastructure, referred to in Article 83 of this Emergency Order, have been handed over to the C.N.I.R, whichever is the first, the C.N.A.I.R shall also carry out the following activities [...] b) ensure the implementation of unitary development programmes for the public road network […]  (2) Until the projects under implementation have been completed or all the projects referred to in Article 64 of this Emergency Order have been handed over to the CNIR, funds shall be allocated to CNAIR from the state budget and from the budget allocated to non- repayable funds, in accordance with the law, and for the following categories of expenditure necessary for the implementation of the projects […] a) rehabilitation of motorways, express roads, national roads, bypasses and other national road infrastructure

elements for road transport infrastructure projects it has in its implementation […].”

Based on the above provisions, it is concluded that investment projects shall run in parallel for C.N.A.I.R and C.N.I.R until C.N.I.R is fully operational and all major investment projects shall be under the management of the C.N.I.R.

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

1. A new entity C.N.I.R. S.A. (National Company for Road Infrastructure) has been created by legislation entered into force in April 2021 to manage the investments in road sector, with the responsibility to ensure the implementation of the projects from the technical and economic documentation phase, tendering procedures, effective construction to reception. It is expected that this shall allow to focus a specific entity (C.N.I.R) on the efficient management and prioritization of the new road investments, while the other entity (C.N.A.I.R) shall focus on the management and maintenance of the existing road network.

According to Article 8 of Government Emergency Ordinance no. 55/2016, C.N.I.R is mainly tasked with the management of the investments in the road sector and is also attributed the responsibility to ensure the implementation of road infrastructure projects, starting from the technical and

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