Preliminary assessment of the second payment request of Romania

preparation of presentation and motivation tools. In practice, the CCEIAN must scrutinise regulatory impact assessments accompanying draft legislative acts that are part of the Annual Work Plan of the Government. The list of eligible acts is drafted by the technical secretariat of the CCEIAN and updated every 6 months (detailed in Article 15 of the CCEIAN Rules of procedure, adopted by CCEIAN Decision No. 2/2022 mentioned as evidence provided VI) The CCEIAN has five working days to issue an opinion on ex-ante impact assessments of draft laws, or three working days in the case of draft emergency ordinances (Article 15 of the rules and procedures). The opinion can be positive, positive with recommendations for amendments or negative, and is published on the website of the General Secretariat of the Government. The proponent of the law must take into account all comments by the CCEIAN and, if relevant, provide a justification for not taking them on board (Article 9 of the Better Governance Government Decision).

The opinion may also include recommendations on the way to conduct ex-post evaluations, including methods and techniques to be used (Article 10). The technical secretariat of the Council ensures the transmission of updated versions of ex-post assessments throughout the implementation process to ensure monitoring by the CCEIAN (Article 12). These procedures are similar to the ones followed by the European Regulatory Scrutiny Board, with some differences to factor in the specificities of the Romanian institutional context. In addition, the Better Regulation Government Decision provides that the CCEIAN “will collaborate with similar structures at European level, taking part in events organised by them or their associative structures.” (Article 8(3)). 4) The legislative act shall establish the following: (1) selection procedure for the board experts; (2) rules and procedures for the board and the technical secretariat (including job descriptions); (3) guidelines on how to assess the quality of documents; (4) communication strategy inside and

outside Government; (5) trainings. The Better Regulation Government Decision (Article 11) regulates the composition of the CCEIAN and its selection. Article 11(1) stipulates that the CCEIAN is made of five to eleven council members with experience and expertise in the preparation of normative acts, as well as the measurement of their impact and their evaluation (Article 11(1)), for a four-year mandate (Article 11(5)). Annex 7 to the Government Decision sets out procedures for their selection as well as detailed criteria for the evaluation of the candidates. The members of the CCEIAN are appointed by the Prime Minister (who can also remove them), on a proposal by the General Secretariat of the Government. The rules of organisation and functioning (ROF, included as evidence VI) of the CCEIAN, equivalent to requirement (2), have been adopted by the CCEIAN itself, in line with Article 13 of the Better Regulation Government Decision. Annex 2 of the rules moreover provides for the job descriptions for the members of the Council and of its technical secretariat.

Annex 10 of the Government Decision sets out clear criteria for the members of the CCEIAN to evaluate the impact assessments and ex-post evaluations. The assessment has to be conducted in compliance with the template and methodology for impact assessments and for ex-post evaluations, set out respectively in Annex 1 and Annex 2 (Article 1(4) and Article 1(5)), and in Annex 4 and Annex 5 of the same Government Decision (Article 4(2) and Article 4(5)). Article 15 of the Better Regulation Government Decision requires the Council to contribute to the drafting of the “Government’s communication strategy in the field of regulatory impact assessments.” The CCEIAN adopted its first communication strategy in fall 2022 (included as evidence IX), laying down strategies and actions to communicate scope, modalities, and principles of regulatory impact assessments within the decision-making process to both civil servants and the general public (including enterprises, non-governmental organisations and citizens) (for reference,

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