IRINA VILCU CIVIL SOCIETY DEVELOPMENT FOUNDATION (CSDF) ROMANIA

Consultation is defined as citizen involvement in management of public decisions.

The adoption of 1 % Law The adoption of 1 % Law has been considered one of the major achievements of Romanian NGO sector in last few years. It was included as amendment to the Fiscal Code. The whole process of forming a coalition on this issue, advocacy campaign took place in a very short time. The result that the 1% law was approved.

Obstacles to public consultation in Romania: Public authority only administrates but does not develop. Lack competence and expertise of public authorities’ staff. Lack of citizens’ trust in the public authorities. Poor management of the consultations process (the lack of planning and information provided to NGOs before the beginning of the process, no qualified staff to properly know how to organize such public consultation). Lack of transparency within the public administration.

Conclusions 0.05 of recommendations on draft regulation/decision have been made by the public of meetings on draft regulation/decision/legislative act have been organized at the request of NGOs of public hearings requested by the law for each draft regulation have been organized in 2005.

Conclusion In Romania, consultation process represents a new element in the administrative practice and public administration has a series of difficulties in implementation of this. The most common difficulty encountered is: ” We are in an incipient stage of legislation implementation.”