Romania’s Progress Report for the National Action Plan

OGP in the world ◦Established in 2011, OGP is a multi-stakeholder initiative through which governments make concrete commitments to open governance; OGP in Romania ◦Romania joined OGP in 2011, through the action of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs; ◦Romania is currently in its second National Action Plan, which was signed in August 2014; Independent Reporting Mechanism ◦Progress report one year into the Action Plan implementation; What is OGP?

OGP Terms “Open government is the governing doctrine which holds that citizens have the right to access the documents and proceedings of the government to allow for effective public oversight. In its broadest construction it opposes reason of state and other considerations, which have tended to legitimize extensive state secrecy.” “Open data is data provided by government entities in non-proprietary formats, which that can be freely used, re-used and redistributed by anyone. Once shared, open data can be used for any purpose, including research, profit-making or oversight”.

Romania Progress Report

Institutional Arrangements The Chancellery of the Prime Minister, through the Department for Online Services and Design (DSOD), is the leading institution responsible for Romania’s OGP action plan and implementation; The National Action Plan was adopted through a government memorandum, which is a non-binding document, unlike a Government Decision; The network of public sector employees with OGP responsibilities is relatively unstable and has a large turnover;

Focus of the Action Plan The National Action Plan of Romania features 11 commitments, which can be structured under three major chapters: ◦1) Transparency and Administrative Efficiency; ◦2) Open data published by public institutions; ◦3) Training and dissemination;

Level of Completion Only five of the eleven commitments were on schedule; Some other commitments were completed in the meanwhile;

OGP process Who was consulted? Government; Civil society, especially Open Data Coalition; Who was involved? Government; Civil society, especially Open Data Coalition; Was there an open dialogue? Who was missing? Academia, the private sector, more civil society.

Starred Commitments Free online access to national legislation

Outstanding Commitments Public interest document disclosure: ◦OGP value relevance – clear; ◦Potential impact – moderate; ◦Completion – limited; Public datasets inventory: ◦OGP value relevance – clear; ◦Potential impact – moderate; ◦Completion – limited;

Conclusions Due to multiple restrictions, open government commitments are relatively difficult to attain, and the OGP National Action Plan is mostly focused on open data commitments; The political and civic resources are scarce and insufficient to push the OGP process into the national agenda. Most results are generated through the focused effort of the available energies;

SMART Recommendations 1.Adopt the next OGP national action plan as a governmental decision (Hot ă râre de Guvern) rather than a memorandum; 2.Direct OGP, SNA and transparency legislation responsibilities to a single individual or team in each institution; 3.Expand the institutional capacity for the Department for Online Services and Design (DSOD) and help focus and intensify the leadership process of the OGP process in Romania; 4.Create a government portal where citizens can find all the legislation undergoing public consultations; 5.The next national action plan should include requirements that all 42 prefectures in Romania publish open data on the governmental portal (data.gov.ro);

Resources Public consultation process: Comments or questions:

Thank you Dani Sandu