1.

National Strategy on Public Procurement: background

and methodology
Developing the National Public Procurement Strategy is a critical step in
reforming the public procurement system, because it establishes a common
vision of reforming this system, in a key moment where the new PP Directives are
proposing to the Member States the transition to a new paradigm where public
procurement represents the main tool to unlock economic growth in Europe.
The National Public Procurement Strategy provides a comprehensive roadmap for
the reforms in public procurement and enables the Government of Romania,
through Ministry of Public Finance - National Agency for Public Procurement to
initiate and perform sequential and sustained measures for bringing in good
governance and strengthening the procurement systems.
This Strategy is aimed at least at the following categories of national key
stakeholders: Government of Romania, ANAP, contracting authorities or central
purchasing units, civil servants and contractual staff involved in public
procurement and in the delivery of services to the citizens, economic operators.
The main Romanian stakeholders in the field of public procurement have been
invited to participate in the process of elaboration of the Strategy by Prime
Minister Decision no. 218/2014 , issued in June 2014 . Through this decision it
was established an Inter-ministerial Committee together with a technical working
group. A structured dialogue on the Strategy elaboration was also conducted
during July 2014-June 2015 between European Commission and Romania in the
context of the implementation of the new public procurement directives and of
the Partnership Agreement with Romania on using EU Structural and Investment
Funds for growth and jobs in 2014-2020. Throughout this process, the
Government of Romania was supported by the European Investment Bank and
the World Bank.
The measures clustered within the 5 pillars of the Strategy result from a cyclic
communication process, as follows: information gathering, analysis, options
development and appraisal, consultation within the working group, structured
dialogue with EC and preliminary consultations with stakeholders where
applicable, reflection and fixing the measure.
The process of defining the measures was iterative and currently remains open
for the integration of new information during the course of the implementation of
the strategy. In particular the measures addressing the CPBs operating model and
piloting the list of approved economic operators in the area of road infrastructure
are to be operationalized based on the results of the analyses included as
measures in the Strategy.
Development of the Strategy was based on the activity performed by the
nominated technical working group. The Inter-ministerial Committee was
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organized whenever it was necessary for political decisions to be taken or to

establish guidelines for the technical working group.
The reform of the Romanian Public Procurement System engages the Government
of Romania and all relevant stakeholders with the scope of driving improvements
in the public procurement which are included in the Public Procurement Strategy
as well as building on existing strengths and eliminating identified shortcomings,
including risk areas for corruption and conflict of interest and move procurement
policy and practice to a strategic approach. The exercise of PP Strategy
elaboration involved an assessment of existing procurement structures, policies,
procedures and skills. Following the assessment process, appropriate
procurement policy, procedures and practices were identified, which are
expected to lead to (best) value for money outcomes over time. Therefore, the
Strategy is to be implemented via improvements of the Romanian Public
Procurement System functions, adopting optimal procurement structures,
effective purchasing policies and procedures as well as the professionalization of
public procurement staff.

2. ROMANIAN PUBLIC PROCUREMENT SYSTEM: THE WAY

FORWARD
The Romanian Public Procurement Strategy is expected to create the frame which
aims achieving best value for money taking into account the probity and
accountability. The responsibility for ensuring value for money outcomes rests
with individual contracting authorities.
Public Procurement System represents a social system, consisting of
interrelationships between procurement professionals, contracting authorities,
and institutions in charge with the management of the system while forming a
coherent whole. As any social system, it benefits of vision, mission and goals
reflected in the Strategy. These are further presented.

2.1.

Vision

Building and sustain (and continuously improve) an efficient and effective Public
Procurement System which contributes to the improvement of services delivered
to the actual and future generation of Romanians and support fulfilment of
Europe 2020 Strategy.

2.2.

Mission

To professionalize the public procurement process so that it ensures

transparency, efficiency, integrity and value for money to support national
growth and development.

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2.3.

Objectives

Achieve value for money on behalf of the specific stakeholders

(taxpayers,shareholders or society at large), by developing a framework for
public procurement with the following features:
a) Stable and predictable legislative framework, oriented to the principles of
public procurement,
b) Legislation embedded with guidelines available on the Internet,
c) coherent and simplified institutional system, with streamlined functions
and responsibilities, avoiding duplication,
d) simplified and improved procurement process, ensuring legality and
quality,
e) internal and external control systems, efficient, quality and substanceoriented, ensuring best practices and integrity,
f) Increasing the efficiency and transparency of public procurement,
g) implement current trends (green procurement, energy efficiency, socially
responsible procurement, e-procurement, support of SMEs) in line with
Europe 2020 Strategy,
h) professionalization of the public procurement system
To achieve the above goals and to trigger a cultural shift, the following reforms
are proposed under each chapter as described below.

3. Chapters
This strategy comprises five chapters as follows:
Chapter 1: The quality of the legal framework, including the assessment of
the solutions for transposing the new PP Directives into Romanian
legislation,
Chapter 2: Overall coherence and effectiveness of the institutional
framework,
Chapter 3: The legality and quality of the procurement process,
Chapter 4: The capacity of the contracting authorities, in particular the
professionalization and the integrity,
Chapter 5: Monitoring and supervisory functions of the Public Procurement
System in Romania
The five chapters are complementing each other, establishing a coherent
framework. It should be stressed that improving the public procurement system
does not depend on a single, isolated measure, but on the implementation of this
Strategy as a whole.

4. Implementation arrangements
The owner of the Public Procurement Reform in Romania is the Government of
Romania and the PP Council Inter-ministerial Committee.
The responsible entity for the implementation of the Strategy is the National
Agency for Public Procurement, established through the GEO no. 13/2015.
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An unit will be established at the ANAP level in charge with day to day
coordination of the Strategy implementation. The approach used is program
management for the Strategy as a whole and Project Management for each Pillar
of the Strategy. The coordination arrangements, staffing, detailed functions and
activities will be established by the Government Decision that will be adopted in
the coming period based on GEO no. 13/2015.
Other key PP stakeholders will be involved in the implementation of the Strategy
as required by the specific actions included under the different Pillars.
Given the experience gained from the functioning of the working group
established for developing the Strategy, the main risks related to implementation
can be summarized as follows:
1. The need for further harmonization of the interests of different
stakeholders in the implementation of the Strategy, a process carried out
in an extremely dynamic environment,
2. The need of close monitoring in order to boost the implementation of all
actions outlined in the strategy.

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