Preliminary assessment of the second payment request of Romania

viii)   The programme and training plan in the field of regulatory impact assessment, issued by
        the General Secretariat of the Government
 ix)    The communication strategy of the CCEIAN, approved by the General Secretariat of the
        Government
  x)    World Bank report on “the comparative review of the institutional arrangements for RIA
        quality control (including recommendations on an action plan and operational procedures),
        published in October 2020.

Analysis: The justification and substantiating evidence provided by the Romanian authorities cover all the constitutive elements of the milestone. Entry into force of a legislative act operationalising a structure to ensure the implementation of an Effective regulatory quality control mechanism Government Decision No. 443/2022, which entered into force on 5 April 2022, establishes a structure to ensure the implementation of an effective regulatory quality control mechanism (Article 7). The Prime Minister’s Decision No. 503/2022 appointed in a unique article the members of the CCEIAN. The Decisions of the CCEIAN No. 1/2022 and No. 2/2022 ensure through their articles the operationalisation of the CCEIAN, by respectively appointing its coordinator and adopting its rules and procedures. 1) The legislative act shall be based on the study carried out by the General Secretariat of the

Government on the establishment of a quality control mechanism at the government centre. Government Decision No. 443/2022 reflects the results of the World Bank report on “the comparative review of the institutional arrangements for RIA quality control (including recommendations on an action plan and operational procedures), published in October 2020 and also available online on the Government’s website (Comparative Review of the Institutional Arrangements for RIA Quality Control (including recommendations on an action plan (gov.ro)). While drafting the Government Decision No. 443/2022, Romania took under consideration the five options set out in the report for positioning the CCEIAN in the Romanian public administration architecture (for reference, please consult page 76 of the above-mentioned report). Romania moreover designed the CCEIAN using as a blueprint examples of scrutiny structures from across the European Union – especially for what concerns their mandate, activities, staffing and reporting obligations.

2) The new structure shall perform regulatory scrutiny of the quality of impact assessments and evaluations. The Better Regulation Government Decision provides that the CCEIAN will assess whether regulatory ex-ante impact assessments accompanying draft legislative acts (Article 8(1a)) and the ex-post evaluations (also referred to as “report on the implementation of normative acts”, Article 8(1b)) have been carried out in line with the methodology set out in Annex 2 (for ex-ante impact assessments) and Annex 5 (for ex-post evaluations) of the same Government Decision. The assessment is conducted before the adoption of the draft normative act by the Government and as part of the inter-ministerial consultation (GD 443/2022, Article 8.2(a)). 3) [The structure] shall be composed of a board of experts supported by a technical secretariat, similar to the Regulatory Scrutiny Board that is currently active at the level of the European Commission.

Article 8 of the Better Regulation Government Decision requires the CCEIAN to monitor the quality of regulatory impact assessments accompanying normative acts drafted by central authorities before they are approved by the government, and their compliance with the methodology for the

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