In brief

  • Constanța joins the list of projects that town halls may carry out together with CFR on the railway, and the list reaches 21 entries. Order no. 895/2026 of the acting Minister of Transport and Infrastructure replaces the annex to Order no. 1.448/2023 in its entirety, instead of adding one row to it. Compared entry by entry, the first 20 are republished identically, and the only new entry is the 21st: „Introducerea și, ulterior, dezvoltarea serviciilor de Tren Metropolitan Constanța”, the introduction and, later, the development of the Constanța metropolitan train services.
  • Who is concerned. The National Railway Company „C.F.R.” S.A., which manages the public railway infrastructure and is a party to all 21 projects, plus the new partner, Asociația de Dezvoltare Intercomunitară Dezvoltare Durabilă a Județului Constanța, the intercommunity development association for the sustainable development of Constanța county. Indirectly, the 20 local authorities already on the list, from the intercommunity development association for public transport in Bucharest and Ilfov to the commune of Băcia and the town hall of the commune of Cristian, because the mandate given to the company is granted afresh, from the ground up, at every replacement of the annex.
  • The figures and the time limits that count. The list started this year with 16 entries, on 19 January, and reached 21 on 29 September, that is five new projects in 253 days, brought by four full rewritings of the same annex, one roughly every 63 days, more often than the quarter required by Article 112(3)(b) of Government Emergency Ordinance no. 12/1998. Since 23 August 2023, when the annex held a single project, 1,133 days have passed and 20 entries have been added, one roughly every 57 days. The order was signed on 23 September 2026 and published six days later, and it applies from publication.
Act: Order of the acting Minister of Transport and Infrastructure no. 895/2026 amending the annex to Order of the Minister of Transport and Infrastructure no. 1.448/2023 approving the list of projects analysed, approved and proposed for implementation under Article 112 of Government Emergency Ordinance no. 12/1998 on transport on the Romanian railways and the reorganisation of the National Company of Romanian Railways, and mandating the national company which manages the railway infrastructure to set up the partnerships and to conclude the implementation protocols for the projects
Published: Official Gazette of Romania, Part I, no. 825 of 29 September 2026, pages 12-13
In force from: 29 September 2026, the date of publication, under Article 12(2) of Law no. 24/2000 on legislative drafting rules for the elaboration of normative acts

There is an official list of the projects a city or a county may carry out on the railway together with the company that manages it, and that list is rewritten from scratch every time somebody else joins it. On 29 September 2026 Constanța joined, with a metropolitan train, and the list reached 21 entries. Order no. 895 of 23 September 2026 of the acting Minister of Transport and Infrastructure, published in the Official Gazette of Romania, Part I, no. 825 of 29 September 2026, replaces in full the annex to Order no. 1.448/2023. This list is the other face of the network which the Government said, in the summer of 2026, needs money if it is not to decay: the railway strategy for 2026-2030 shows 1,688 kilometres of track under speed restriction and a financing need of around 26 billion euros. It is there, on the same lines and on the same land, that town halls plan their metropolitan trains.

The mechanism sits in Article 112 of Government Emergency Ordinance no. 12/1998 on transport on the Romanian railways and the reorganisation of the National Company of Romanian Railways, republished in the Official Gazette of Romania, Part I, no. 834 of 9 September 2004. The article allows a commune, a town, a county, an intercommunity development association or a metropolitan area to propose to the ministry the conclusion of an association in participation agreement, that is a form of collaboration in which the parties put resources together for a common purpose without setting up a new company. The object may be local rail passenger transport, the development of the infrastructure, the stations and their buildings, urban regeneration or the arrangement of the public spaces around the line. To reach the association stage, the project first has to be on the list approved by order of the minister, and the company which manages the infrastructure has to be mandated for it. That is exactly what the present order does.

The annex has three columns: the serial number, the title of the project and the parties. Nothing else. No sums appear, no time limits, no stages, no indication of the stage each project has reached. The first party in every entry is always the same, the National Railway Company „C.F.R.” S.A., and the second is the local authority or the association that asked for the project. For the new entry, the partner is Asociația de Dezvoltare Intercomunitară Dezvoltare Durabilă a Județului Constanța.

What the list contains, read on the substance, does not look like its title. Ten of the 21 entries really are urban, peri-urban or metropolitan train services: Bucharest and Ilfov, the tram-train at Oradea (a tram that also runs on the ordinary railway), the northern railway half-ring of the capital, the Iași metropolitan area, the Sibiu peri-urban train, the Cluj metropolitan train, Brașov, Mureș, Timișoara and, from now on, Constanța. The other 11 are works on the line or beside it, and seven of them have nothing to do with the running of trains: a linear park at Piatra-Neamț, a promenade area in Sector 5, a street at Alba Iulia, pedestrian spaces at Cristian, in Sibiu county, a CFR housing-block area at Băcia, in Hunedoara county, side car parks next to the station at Pitești and the modernisation of the Romacril neighbourhood, next to the halt at Râșnov. In other words, a third of a list of railway projects is in fact urban development on railway land.

What it changes in practice

The first effect is specific and concerns a single county. From 29 September 2026 the Constanța metropolitan train project has a basis for the next step: the National Railway Company „C.F.R.” S.A. is mandated, by Article II of the order, to set up the partnership and to conclude the implementation protocol for it. Without the entry in the annex, the discussion between the intercommunity development association and the company remained an intention with no act to rest on.

The second effect is legal and goes unnoticed, because the order does not say it. Article I does not amend one entry, it replaces the annex: „se modifică și se înlocuiește cu anexa care face parte integrantă din prezentul ordin”, it is amended and replaced by the annex forming an integral part of the present order. That means the old annex, the one published on 13 August 2026, ceases in its entirety, and all 21 projects take their existence from the present act. In practice nothing changes for the 20 old entries, because their text is reproduced word for word. In law, however, the basis on which each of them rests is, from 29 September 2026, Order no. 895/2026, not the order that introduced it.

The third effect is that of the mandate. Article II renews the mandate of the company for all the projects in the annex, not only for the new one. At every replacement the mandate is granted anew, as a block. The consequence is that a protocol under negotiation rests on a mandate that has been renewed four times since May, without any of the orders saying what happens to the acts already signed under the previous mandate.

The fourth effect is one of calendar. The order lays down no later date of application, so it applies from publication, under Article 12(2) of Law no. 24/2000 on legislative drafting rules for the elaboration of normative acts, which says that orders of the heads of ministries enter into force on the date of publication in the Official Gazette of Romania, Part I, unless a later date is provided in their text. The three-day period from publication, which many people attribute out of habit to every act, applies to laws, not to ministerial orders.

What the order does not do deserves to be said just as firmly. It allocates not a single leu. The expenditure for the projects on the list is financed, under Article 112(7) of Government Emergency Ordinance no. 12/1998, from the budgets of the local authorities, from the State budget through the annual budget of the ministry, from non-reimbursable external funds or from other sources, all within the limits of the sums approved each year. Joining the list opens an administrative gate, not a budgetary one.

What has changed compared with the previous situation

The previous form of the annex was not the one in Order no. 2.287/2025, as one might think from the record of the act, but the one set by Order no. 765 of 11 August 2026, published in the Official Gazette of Romania, Part I, no. 672 of 13 August 2026. The comparison below is made against that form, on the text in the Official Gazette of Romania (Monitorul Oficial), not on a consolidated version.

The difference is exactly one entry. The 20 existing rows, with their titles and their parties, are found identically in the new annex, and the only change of a letter is at entry 5, where the name of the company appeared in August without the dash before the abbreviation „S.A.”, and now has it. Entry 21, the new one, reads: „Introducerea și, ulterior, dezvoltarea serviciilor de Tren Metropolitan Constanța”, with the parties „Compania Națională de Căi Ferate «C.F.R.» S.A.; A.D.I. Dezvoltare Durabilă a Județului Constanța”.

Seen across three years, the list looks different. In the form published on 23 August 2023, by Order no. 1.448/2023, the annex had a single project, the urban and metropolitan train for Bucharest and Ilfov. On 29 October 2025, by Order no. 1.975/2025, published in the Official Gazette of Romania, Part I, no. 994, it had reached 15. On 19 January 2026, by Order no. 2.287/2025, published in the Official Gazette of Romania, Part I, no. 34, it stood at 16. Then, in eight months: 18 entries on 28 May 2026, by Order no. 537/2026, published in the Official Gazette of Romania, Part I, no. 451; 19 on 20 July 2026, by Order no. 685/2026, in no. 590; 20 on 13 August 2026, by Order no. 765/2026, in no. 672; 21 now.

In all the forms compared here, no entry has disappeared. The numbering climbs, the old rows repeat, and the projects that joined in 2023 and in 2024 sit on the list in the same form in which they joined. The list grows, but it is never cleaned.

A second thing has changed in the signature. The August order and the present one are both issued by an acting minister and signed by delegation: in August by the secretary general Mariana Ioniță, now by the secretary of state Horațiu-Lucian Cosma. Delegation is allowed by Article 9(7) of Government Decision no. 370/2021 on the organisation and functioning of the Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure, and the power to issue orders comes from Article 9(4) of the same decision, the only basis invoked in the preamble.

Advantages and disadvantages

What it improves

  • One more county has, from today, an open road. Constanța needed an entry in the annex in order to move from discussions to a protocol. It got one six days after the order was signed.
  • The updating really is done, and more often than the law requires. Quarterly updating is required by Article 112(3)(b) of Government Emergency Ordinance no. 12/1998. In 2026 the ministry has rewritten the annex roughly every 63 days, so it does not leave an approved request waiting until the end of the quarter.
  • Full replacement leaves a list you read once. The alternative, that is amendments made entry by entry, would have forced the reader to reconstruct the list from seven successive acts. This way, the latest Official Gazette of Romania contains the complete form.
  • Publication in the Official Gazette of Romania is compulsory, not a choice for the ministry. Article 6(3) of the methodological norms approved by Government Decision no. 187/2023 expressly requires this type of order to be published, so the list cannot stay an internal document.

What remains a problem

  • The list says nothing about money, time limits or progress. Three columns, one of which is always the same company. A resident of Constanța learns from the act neither how much the metropolitan train costs, nor when it would run, nor what has been done so far on the other 20 projects.
  • It is not visible which legal regime each project falls under. Within the same Article 112, the ordinance has two different mechanisms, one for assets in the public property of the State and another for buildings and land in the private property of the railway companies, with different financing rules and different fates for the assets produced when the association ends. The annex marks in no way who is where.
  • Titles from which you cannot tell what is meant. „Obiect 11, Nod Avionului”, „Reamenajare urbană și amenajare zonă de promenadă” or „Amenajare spații pietonale adiacente străzii XXIV” are entries that give neither the place nor the object. The only clue is the party in the next column.
  • The list has an entrance but no exit. In three years it has grown from one project to 21 and has lost nothing. The ordinance also allows entry on the basis of a declaration on one’s own responsibility, with an obligation to comply within six months of the approval of the project, but the list does not show whether any authority has complied or not.
  • There is no way of checking whether the 30-day time limit was observed. Approval by order has to be given within 30 days of the opportunity approval, under Article 112(3)(a). The date of the approval for the Constanța project does not appear in the act, so the time limit cannot be verified.

Practical advice

  1. If you are a mayor or you run an intercommunity development association, start from the decision of the deliberative authority. A decision of the local or county council is required by Article 112(1) of Government Emergency Ordinance no. 12/1998, and for associations a decision of the general assembly is required, before the proposal is sent to the ministry. Without it the file has no starting point.
  2. Substantiate your implementation capacity, do not merely declare it. Proof that you can carry the project through is required by Article 112(2)(a), together with the assumption of the traffic safety conditions in Articles 34-36 of the same ordinance. The declaration on one’s own responsibility, allowed by point (b), leaves you with an obligation to comply within six months of the approval, that is it moves the problem rather than solving it.
  3. Ask in writing for the date of the opportunity approval. It is the only figure from which one can see whether the 30-day time limit in Article 112(3)(a) was observed, and the published order does not contain it. The request goes to the ministry, under Law no. 544/2001 on free access to information of public interest.
  4. Do not expect financing to follow from joining the list. An entry in the annex is not a budgetary commitment. Financing is sent by Article 112(7) to the local budget, to the State budget, to non-reimbursable external funds or to other sources, all within the limits of the sums approved each year. Provide for the sums in your own budget in parallel with filing the application.
  5. Check who owns the land you have in view, before anything else. If the project touches buildings or land in the private property of the National Railway Company „C.F.R.” S.A. or of other State railway companies, a different set of rules applies than for assets in public property, including for what happens to the works when the association ends. Clarify the regime in the protocol, because the annex does not clarify it.
  6. If you are following a project already on the list, follow the protocol, not the order. The act that produces concrete obligations between the parties is the implementation protocol, signed under Article 7(1) of the methodological norms approved by Government Decision no. 187/2023, not the entry in the annex. Ask the town hall or the association for it, as a public document.
  7. Take the list from the most recent Official Gazette of Romania, not from consolidated versions. The annex is replaced in full by each order, and legal databases pick the replacements up late. A consolidated version may show the state of affairs from the autumn of 2025, with 15 entries, although the order of August 2026 had published 20.

Frequently asked questions

What has this order changed, in concrete terms?
One entry has been added to the list, the 21st: „Introducerea și, ulterior, dezvoltarea serviciilor de Tren Metropolitan Constanța”, the introduction and later development of the Constanța metropolitan train services, with the National Railway Company „C.F.R.” S.A. and Asociația de Dezvoltare Intercomunitară Dezvoltare Durabilă a Județului Constanța as parties. The other 20 entries are reproduced identically.
Why was the whole list republished for a single row?
Because that is how the mechanism has been built since 2023: Article I of every order of this type says that the annex „se modifică și se înlocuiește”, it is amended and replaced, not that it is supplemented with one entry. The consequence is that every update republishes the whole list.
Does this mean the Constanța metropolitan train has financing?
No. The order allocates no money. Joining the list makes it possible to set up the partnership and to conclude the implementation protocol. Financing is sought separately, under Article 112(7) of Government Emergency Ordinance no. 12/1998, within the limits of the sums approved each year.
From when does it apply?
From 29 September 2026, the date of publication in the Official Gazette of Romania, Part I, no. 825. Its text contains no later date, and Article 12(2) of Law no. 24/2000 ties the entry into force of ministerial orders to the date of publication.
How does a city or a county get onto this list?
By a proposal addressed to the Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure, on the basis of a decision of the local or county council or of a decision of the general assembly of the association, accompanied by the substantiation of the implementation capacity. After the opportunity approval, the list is approved by order of the minister within 30 days, under Article 112(3)(a).
How often is the list updated?
The law requires it quarterly or whenever necessary. In practice, since the form published on 19 January 2026 there have been four replacements: on 28 May, 20 July, 13 August and 29 September, that is one roughly every 63 days.
What is an association in participation agreement?
A form of collaboration between two or more partners who work together for a common purpose without setting up a new company. The model agreement is set out in Annex no. 5 to the methodological norms approved by Government Decision no. 187/2023.
Who signs the implementation protocol?
Under Article 7(1) of the methodological norms approved by Government Decision no. 187/2023, the ministry signs it with the mandated representative of the local associate. The present order says, in Article II, that the railway company is mandated to conclude the protocols, which does not fit the norm.
How many of the 21 projects are really about trains?
Ten are urban, peri-urban or metropolitan train services. The other 11 are works on the line or beside it, and seven of those are urban developments unconnected with the running of trains: a park, a promenade, a street, pedestrian spaces, a housing-block area, car parks and the modernisation of a neighbourhood.

Errors and inconsistencies in the published text

  • The title of the annex refers to a paragraph that sets up no list, and from the act it is impossible to establish which of the two regimes in Article 112 applies to each project. The annex is headed „Lista proiectelor analizate, aprobate și propuse spre implementare potrivit prevederilor art. 112 alin. (1)”, the list of projects analysed, approved and proposed for implementation under that paragraph. Paragraph (1) provides for no list at all: it allows administrative-territorial units and associations to propose to the ministry the conclusion of association agreements. The lists are in paragraph (3), for projects on the public railway infrastructure and on assets in the public domain of the State, and in paragraph (12), for projects involving buildings and land in the private property of the wholly State-owned railway companies. The preamble of the order invokes only paragraph (3)(b), Article II speaks of „parteneriate”, partnerships, a term the ordinance uses only in paragraphs (10) and (12), and the annex refers to paragraph (1). The distinction decides money and assets: the expenditure is financed under paragraphs (7) to (9) in the first regime and under paragraphs (13) and (14) in the second, and when the partnership under paragraph (10) ends, the assets produced pass into the private domain of the State, under paragraph (15), by reference to Article 359 of Government Emergency Ordinance no. 57/2019 on the Administrative Code. Article 6(2) of the methodological norms approved by Government Decision no. 187/2023 does allow a common list, covering both public assets and property of the company, but that is precisely why the list ought to show which regime each entry falls under. As published, it does not, and two readers in good faith may reach different conclusions about the same entry.
  • The mandate in Article II gives the railway company a power that the basis invoked places elsewhere. Article II mandates the National Railway Company „C.F.R.” S.A. „pentru constituirea parteneriatelor și pentru încheierea protocoalelor de implementare a proiectelor prevăzute în anexă”, to set up the partnerships and to conclude the implementation protocols for the projects listed in the annex. Article 112(3) of Government Emergency Ordinance no. 12/1998, the only substantive basis invoked in the preamble, describes the company’s mandate differently: for setting up the associations under the conditions of Article 114 and for the „aprobarea”, the approval, of the implementation protocols, of the association agreements and, where applicable, of the local activity contracts. Article 7(1) of the methodological norms approved by Government Decision no. 187/2023 goes further and says that the implementation protocol is signed by the ministry with the mandated representative of the local associate. It remains an open question who is the signatory party to the protocol, the ministry or the company, and on the answer depends who answers for the obligations assumed in it.

Editorial analysis

The act itself is clean and short: three articles and a table. What gives food for thought is the sequence it sits in, not its content. Order no. 895/2026 is the fourth full rewriting of the same annex since the form published on 19 January, after those of 28 May, 20 July and 13 August. The list started then with 16 entries and reached 21 in 253 days, that is one replacement roughly every 63 days and one new project roughly every 51. The law requires quarterly updating, so the ministry moves faster than the rule, and that is to its credit. Only that the method chosen means that, for one row, 21 are reprinted. Of the 21 entries published now, one is new, that is 4.8%. The rest have been in the Official Gazette of Romania before, the oldest of them at least seven times.

The consequence is not an aesthetic one. A reader who wants the list in force cannot take it from a consolidated version, because full replacement erases the trace of the earlier steps: a consolidated version available online stopped at 15 entries, the state of affairs of October 2025, although 20 had been published in August 2026. Whoever looks in the wrong place misses five projects. And for the 20 entries republished now, the legal basis has moved to a new order without anyone being told, because none of the orders contains a provision about the fate of the protocols already concluded under the previous mandate.

The second thing that does not show on a reading of the act is what has slipped onto a list entitled „railway projects”. Counted one by one, ten of the 21 entries are urban, peri-urban or metropolitan train services. Seven are urban developments unconnected with the running of trains: a linear park at Piatra-Neamț, a promenade in Sector 5, a street at Alba Iulia, pedestrian spaces at Cristian, a housing-block area at Băcia, car parks next to the station at Pitești and the modernisation of a neighbourhood at Râșnov. A third of the list. That is not necessarily bad, because Article 112(11) expressly includes urban regeneration and the arrangement of public spaces among the possible objects of the association. But an instrument created to get the metropolitan trains running has also become a route by which town halls reach railway land for surface works, and for that the act contains no ordering of priorities.

The third concrete element concerns the relation between the time limits inside the mechanism. The administration gives itself 30 days from the opportunity approval in which to approve the list, under Article 112(3)(a), and 30 days is little. The applicant, by contrast, may join the list with a declaration on his own responsibility and has six months from the approval of the project to prove what he declared, under paragraph (2)(b), that is six times as long. Here is the part that is not visible: the published list never shows whether that period was observed. In all the forms compared, from August 2023 until now, not one entry has been deleted. Either every authority complied, or failure to comply has no visible consequence. From the act it is impossible to say which of the two.

What should be changed

  • The annex should have a column for the basis, public or private. A single extra column, stating whether the project falls under Article 112(3) or under paragraph (12), would close the ambiguity that decides the financing rules and the fate of the works when the association ends. Today the local partner finds that out only when the protocol is negotiated.
  • Updates should be made by way of supplement, not by replacing the whole annex. Wording of the kind „in the annex, after entry 20, entry 21 is inserted, reading as follows” keeps the chain of legal bases, allows consolidated versions to stay correct and shortens the act from two pages to one paragraph.
  • Each entry should contain the place and the object, not merely an internal project name. „Obiect 11, Nod Avionului” or „Amenajare spații pietonale adiacente străzii XXIV” are names taken from the technical documentation. In a published act the administrative-territorial unit and a minimum description ought to appear, so that the title says by itself what is meant.
  • The ministry should publish, alongside the list, the state of progress of each project. The right place is the ministry’s own web page, updated at every replacement: whether the protocol has been signed, whether the association agreement exists, whether the six-month compliance period was observed. The list has 21 entries, the oldest of them from August 2023, and from the published acts it is impossible to learn what has actually been built.
  • The order should expressly provide what happens to the acts concluded under the previous mandate. A single sentence in Article II, of the kind „the protocols and agreements concluded until the date of entry into force of the present order remain valid”, removes the discussion that full replacement of the annex opens at every update.
  • The names of the parties should be written uniformly. The same annex contains „Asociația de Dezvoltare Intercomunitară pentru Transport Public București-Ilfov”, written out in full, and „A.D.I. Dezvoltare Durabilă a Județului Constanța”, abbreviated, although the abbreviation is defined nowhere in the act, unlike „U.A.T.”, which is explained at entry 3. For an act that identifies the parties to a partnership, the way it names them is not a matter of typography.

Original text of the legal act

The text below is reproduced in Romanian, the official form of publication.

The full text, as published in the Official Gazette of Romania

Official Gazette of Romania no. 825 of 29 September 2026, pages 12-13 16 pages PDF, 132 KB the act starts on page 12

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