Preliminary assessment of the third payment request of Romania (2024)

publication in the Official Journal No. 832, in accordance with Article 12(3) of Law 24/2000 on the rules of legislative technique for the drafting of legislative acts.

-increased safety inspections and checks. According to the national legislation, Ministerial Order No. 2133 of 8 December 2005 approved the Regulations regarding the periodic technical inspection of vehicles registered in Romania. Based on Article 1 of its Annex, this vehicles inspection consists of: i) technical inspection regarding road safety; ii) technical inspection on environmental protection, and iii) technical inspection regarding the classification based on the category of its use and destination. Within this framework, the national authorities adopted Ministerial Order No. 1218 of 1 July 2022 amending Ministerial Order No. 2133 of 8 December 2005 and introducing new requirements with regard to vehicles checks. The Ministerial Order introduced a new Article 29^1, which requires as of 20 May 2023 that public institutions and services for technical inspection are required to collect and report data on CO2 emissions for vehicles, including data regarding the identification number of a newly registered vehicle after 1 January 2021, equipped with devices for on-board monitoring of the consumption of

fuel and/or energy. Furthermore, the Ministerial Order modified paragraphs 7.1.3 – 7.1.6 in Annex No. 2 - section A, introducing the requirement to use specialized equipment to carry on certain inspections such as checks regarding safety belts, load allowed and pre-tension system, airbags or additional restraint systems. The Ministerial Order also introduced a new requirement under paragraph 7.13 of the same annex, which introduced further checks on configuration, status and performance for the vehicles’ eCall system using specialized equipment. The eCall system allows the automatic notification of the authorities, through a 112 call, in cases a vehicle was involved in a serious accident. Ministerial Order No 1218/2022 was published in the Official Journal No. 711 of 15 July 2022, and entered into force on 4 August 2022, based on the provisions of its Article VIII.

The overall goal for road safety shall aim for a 50% reduction of fatalities in road accidents by 2030 vs 2019, in line with the EU Road Safety Policy Framework 2021-2030.

The Council Implementing Decision states that the overall goal for road safety shall aim for a 50% reduction of fatalities in road accidents by 2030 as compared to 2019, in line with the EU Road Safety Policy Framework 2021-2030. The Recovery and Resilience Plan provides that the general objective for road safety is to have a 50% reduction in road fatalities by 2030 compared to 2019, in line with EU commitments (page 34 and 42). In light of the purposive interpretation of this requirement from the Council Implementing Decision, this element is interpreted as setting out a legally binding requirement that the goal for road safety is a 50% reduction of fatalities in road accidents by 2030 compared to 2019, in line with the EU Road Safety Policy Framework 2021-2030. The authorities approved the National Road Safety Strategy by Government Decision No. 682 of 25 May 2022. The strategy sets the objective of reaching a 50% reduction of fatalities and seriously injured persons in road accidents by 2030 compared to 2019, in line with the EU Road Safety Policy Framework 2021-2030 (Next steps towards ‘Vision zero’), as mentioned under its section 5 -

Objectives (page 18). The annexes to the strategy provide a set of actions to be implemented by 2030 for reaching this objective of road safety. Additionally, the authorities approved Law No. 383/2022 regarding some measures to improve the efficiency of road traffic monitoring, and Article 1(3) of this Law establishes that, by implementing e-SIGUR, the authorities aim to achieve the objective of the National Road Safety Strategy to reduce by 50% the number of fatalities and seriously injured persons in road accidents until 2030 compared to 2019. Furthermore, as further detailed on page 4 of the Statement of reasons of Law No. 383/2022, this objective is set as a first step towards reaching the objective of the EU Road Safety Policy Framework 2021-2030 to reduce the number of deaths in road accidents to almost zero by 2050. On this basis, it is considered that this constitutive element of the milestone is satisfactorily fulfilled. Furthermore, in line with the description of the measure, this reform shall be implemented via