The Group of States against Corruption (GRECO) has published a follow-up report on Romania's progress in preventing corruption and promoting integrity among top executive functions of the central government and law enforcement (the Police and the Gendarmerie). GRECO concludes that Romania has fully implemented two of the 26 recommendations made in the 2023 Fifth Round Evaluation Report. 22 have been partially implemented, and two remain unimplemented.
Regarding top executive functions, the entry into force of Law no. 49/2025 in April 2025, which has introduced ethics and conduct norms for government members, is a key development. Further measures such as guidelines, training, confidential counselling, monitoring and enforcement are needed for its full implementation. A code of conduct for the Presidential administration has also been adopted and published. However, specific rules for the President are absent. The President, Prime Minister, and Presidential Councillors are not required to disclose ad hoc conflicts of interest.
The Presidential administration publishes a gift register, while the Prime Minister's Chancellery and ministries do not. Integrity plans exist for ministries, but they do not cover top executive functions. Other positive developments include increased prosecutorial capacity for corruption offences and the launch of new tools to check assets and interest disclosures. Nevertheless, further progress is needed in carrying out effective integrity checks for top executive functions, revising the current integrity framework, establishing a dedicated oversight mechanism of the access-to-information legislation, limiting the use of emergency ordinances, introducing post-employment restrictions and ensuring better public consultations.
Regarding law enforcement, GRECO welcomes several improvements: the gendarmerie now has a dedicated webpage for the publication of all donations, a unified draft code of ethics for both the police and the gendarmerie is underway, a comprehensive training curriculum in the field of integrity has been developed, and integrity checks are conducted during initial recruitment. A centralised recruitment portal has been launched, and whistleblower protections have been aligned with national law.
However, additional measures are needed to ensure merit-based management appointments, rotation in corruption prone positions, oversight of secondary activities, and post-employment restrictions. Finally, the report stresses the need for concrete measures to increase the representation of women at all levels, and to introduce rules for the disclosure and management of conflicts of interest within the gendarmerie.
GRECO requests the Romanian authorities to submit additional information regarding the implementation of outstanding recommendations by 31 December 2026.
