In brief
- A new chapter, with five articles, for times of crisis. Government Decision no. 824/2026 inserts into Government Decision no. 123/2015 Chapter V¹, „Emergency procedures”, with Articles 40¹-40⁵, and adds two new definitions to Article 2. The rules cover boilers, vessels, piping, cylinders and the other equipment whose maximum allowable pressure exceeds 0.5 bar.
- Nothing in the new chapter works until the European Union decides. Three conditions have to be met together: the Council of the European Union activates the internal market emergency mode, the same decision puts pressure equipment on the list of crisis-relevant goods, and the European Commission activates the emergency procedures. One activation lasts no more than six months and can be extended.
- What changes on the day of activation. Notified bodies give precedence to applications for conformity assessment of this equipment, and equipment authorised in another Member State and accepted by the European Commission for the whole Union may reach the Romanian market without the assessment of a notified body and without CE marking, carrying written information in Romanian that it is a „crisis-relevant good”.
- Two marks remain even after the crisis passes. Equipment admitted under the derogation carries no CE marking even after the emergency mode is deactivated, and equipment manufactured to the crisis standards remains presumed to comply with the safety requirements.
- Transposition arrives 137 days past the deadline. Directive (EU) 2024/2749 required Member States to adopt and publish the provisions by 29 May 2026 and to apply them from 30 May 2026. The decision was published on 13 October 2026.
Published: Official Gazette of Romania (Monitorul Oficial), Part I, no. 857 of 13 October 2026, pages 8-9
In force from: 13 October 2026, the date of publication, because the text of the decision sets no later date, and Article 12 paragraph (3) of Law no. 24/2000 on legislative drafting rules ties the entry into force of Government decisions to the date of publication in the Official Gazette of Romania
An industrial boiler will be able to reach the Romanian market without CE marking and without the verdict of a certification laboratory, but only during a crisis declared at European Union level. Government Decision no. 824/2026, published in the Official Gazette of Romania, Part I, no. 857 of 13 October 2026, adds to the Romanian rules on pressure equipment a chapter that lies unused until the moment the European institutions find an emergency on the internal market. The decision changes no design or manufacturing requirement and asks nothing of anyone from the date of publication. It prepares the ground for a situation in which pressure equipment becomes hard to find and the usual verification procedures would hold up supply.
Pressure equipment means vessels, piping, safety accessories and pressure accessories, that is, the objects that hold a fluid at a pressure higher than that of the surrounding air. The rules in Government Decision no. 123/2015 cover equipment whose maximum allowable pressure exceeds 0.5 bar, the threshold set by Directive 2014/68/EU, which the 2015 decision transposes. This takes in steam and hot water boilers, compressed air receivers, industrial cylinders, process piping networks, safety valves. The basic rule is that above certain thresholds of pressure, volume and diameter the manufacturer cannot sign off its own conformity: it needs a notified body, that is, a laboratory or a certification firm designated by the State and notified to the European Commission, which checks whether the equipment meets the essential safety requirements in Annex no. 1.
Chapter V¹ steps into this mechanism, but only for the duration of a European crisis. The first two points of the decision go together. In Article 2, the list of definitions grows from 32 to 34 points, with „crisis-relevant goods” and „internal market emergency mode”, both taken over by reference to Article 3 of Regulation (EU) 2024/2747 on internal market emergency and internal market resilience. The reference checks out: point 6 of Article 3 defines crisis-relevant goods as goods that cannot be substituted and are considered indispensable for responding to a crisis, listed in an act of the Council of the European Union, while point 3 defines the internal market emergency mode as a framework for a crisis with a significant negative impact on the internal market.
The third point of the decision has nothing to do with crisis situations: throughout the 2015 decision it replaces the name „Ministry of Economy, Trade and Tourism” with „Ministry of Economy, Digitalisation, Entrepreneurship and Tourism”. The old name was the one in use in March 2015, when the decision was published, and it stayed in the text after the ministry was reorganised and renamed several times.
What it changes in practice
The first effect is one of calendar, not of content: from 13 October 2026, Romania has written into domestic law what happens to pressure equipment if an internal market emergency mode is activated. Article 40¹ sets the three conditions. The European Commission must have adopted an implementing act under Article 28 of Regulation (EU) 2024/2747, an article which is actually entitled „Activation of emergency procedures in relevant Union law on products”. The equipment in question must have been designated as crisis-relevant goods under Article 18 paragraph (4) of the same regulation, by an act of the Council adopted on a proposal from the Commission. And the measures apply only for as long as the emergency mode lasts, its duration being written into the activating act and not exceeding six months, with the possibility of extension for successive periods of no more than six months.
The order of the queue at notified bodies changes through Article 40². Applications for conformity assessment of the equipment listed in the European Commission’s act are treated as a priority, whether they were lodged before or after activation. A manufacturer who has been waiting months for a certificate does not lose its place, it gains one. The same article brings two new obligations: the priority regime must not lead to disproportionate costs for the manufacturers who lodged the applications, and notified bodies must expand their testing capacity for the equipment notified to them.
Article 40³ is the one with the largest commercial effect. Where the European Commission extends to the whole Union the validity of an authorisation issued by a Member State, the equipment listed in that act may be placed on the Romanian market without going through the assessment procedures that require a notified body. The conditions of entry are those in the European Commission’s act, not those in the Romanian decision. The equipment must display the information that it is placed on the market as a „crisis-relevant good”, with the content required by the European Commission’s act, and the information and the labels must be clear, legible and written in Romanian. Paragraph (7) draws the technical consequence: this equipment carries no CE marking and does not enjoy the free movement guarantee in Article 5, by derogation from Articles 5, 18 and 19 of the 2015 decision, that is, from free movement and from the rules on affixing the CE marking. Its circulation rests on the European Commission’s act, not on a marking.
For this type of equipment the market surveillance authority keeps every lever: it may take corrective and restrictive measures at national level, from among those provided for in Regulation (EU) 2019/1020 and in the 2015 decision, and it must immediately inform the European Commission and the authorities of the other Member States through ICSMS, the European information and communication system for market surveillance. The decision does not name the authority in the text of the new chapter, but the list of signatures shows it: among the countersignatories is the chief state inspector of the State Inspectorate for the Control of Boilers, Pressure Vessels and Lifting Installations, the institution answerable for this field in Romania.
A second way around the delays opens through Article 40⁴. Where there are no harmonised standards for the applicable safety requirements, or where the crisis blocks the use of the existing ones, the European Commission may indicate other standards by implementing acts or may lay down common specifications, and equipment conforming to them is presumed to conform to the essential safety requirements in Annex no. 1. The advantage closes the day after the emergency mode expires or is deactivated, for new manufacturing. For equipment already placed on the market or used by the manufacturer during the crisis, the presumption stands after the crisis as well, provided the equipment does not present a risk to the health or safety of persons.
The last article of the chapter, 40⁵, places the obligations on the authority, not on firms. Market surveillance for the equipment on the European Commission’s list is carried out as a priority, coordinated through the Union Product Compliance Network set up by Article 29 of Regulation (EU) 2019/1020. And the Romanian authority must provide assistance to the authorities of other Member States for the duration of the crisis, including by sending teams of experts and by logistical support, for instance by making its own testing capacity available.
One effect deserves saying as plainly as it can be said: until a European activation, no manufacturer, importer, distributor or user has anything to do differently from before 13 October 2026. Pressure equipment sold in Romania continues to need CE marking and to go through the usual conformity assessment procedures. The only change with immediate effect is the change of the ministry’s name.
What has changed compared with the previous situation
Until 13 October 2026, the Romanian rules on pressure equipment had no crisis regime at all. Had the European institutions declared an emergency on the internal market and put pressure equipment on the list of relevant goods, there would have been no legal basis in Romania for taking the short route: assessment by a notified body would have remained compulsory, so would the CE marking, and equipment authorised in another Member State and accepted by the European Commission for the whole Union could not have been offered for sale here without breaching the 2015 decision. Emergency procedures exist at European level, but for products harmonised through directives they live in the national transposing texts, not directly in the regulation. Without Chapter V¹, the European mechanism would have had no lever on this segment.
The architecture of the 2015 decision has changed as well. The list of definitions in Article 2 grows from 32 to 34 points, and after Chapter V comes a whole chapter, with five articles and 22 paragraphs: four in Article 40¹, four in 40², nine in 40³, three in 40⁴ and two in 40⁵. The five articles follow, in the same order and with the same content, Articles 43a-43e inserted into Directive 2014/68/EU by Article 10 of Directive (EU) 2024/2749. The numbers differ because the Romanian decision has fewer articles than the directive in its final part, not because it arranged the subject matter differently.
Everything to do with technical safety has stayed as it was. The essential requirements in Annex no. 1 are untouched. The classification of equipment into categories and the conformity assessment procedures in Articles 13 and 14 remain as they were. The obligations of manufacturers, importers and distributors in the chapter devoted to them do not change. What has been added is a door that opens from outside, not a relaxation of the substantive rules.
The calendar calls for a note. Directive (EU) 2024/2749 was adopted on 9 October 2024, published in the Official Journal of the European Union on 8 November 2024, and required Member States to adopt and publish the transposing provisions by 29 May 2026, with application from 30 May 2026. Regulation (EU) 2024/2747, which the new chapter invokes five times, applies from the same date, 29 May 2026. The decision was adopted on 9 October 2026 and published on 13 October 2026, that is, 137 days after the transposition deadline.
Advantages and disadvantages
What it improves
- Romania has, from 13 October 2026, the domestic basis for the European emergency procedures on pressure equipment. Without it, an activation decided in Brussels would have had no effect on this market segment.
- The information and the labels are written in Romanian. The directive left the choice of the Member State’s language open, and the decision chose the language in which the buyer or user in Romania reads.
- The notified bodies’ priority obligation is written as a firm obligation: „they shall treat all applications as a priority”. The directive asks only for all necessary efforts.
- The priority is not paid for by the manufacturer: Article 40² paragraph (3) prohibits disproportionate costs for the party that lodged the application.
- The market surveillance authority is not left without instruments against the equipment admitted under the derogation: it may take corrective and restrictive measures, with the duty to notify the European Commission and the other Member States immediately through ICSMS, a channel the directive did not point to.
- The regime has clear limits in time. It applies only for as long as the European emergency lasts, and one activation cannot run beyond six months.
What remains a problem
- The decision transposes only the arrival end of the derogation. There is no procedure by which a manufacturer in Romania could obtain from a Romanian authority the authorisation that the European Commission then extends across the Union, although the directive provides for one.
- What exactly is permitted appears in three different ways in Article 40³: placing on the market in paragraph (1), placing on the market or putting into service in paragraph (2), placing on the market or use by the manufacturer for its own purposes in paragraph (3).
- The notified bodies’ priority obligation is tied to an article of the European regulation that governs something else entirely, requests addressed by the European Commission to economic operators, which they are free to refuse.
- Equipment without CE marking stays on the market after the crisis as well, and the decision does not say what is checked on it then. The provision in the directive requiring the authorisation to set out the measures applicable once the regime ends was not transposed.
- The post-crisis presumption of conformity is written as a condition placed on the equipment, not as a reservation placed on the authority, as it appears in the directive. The difference shows up at the first inspection.
- Between 30 May and 12 October 2026, that is, 136 days, Romania was without these procedures, although the European regulation already applied.
Practical advice
- Change nothing in your own procedures on the strength of this decision. Chapter V¹ comes to life only after an act of the Council of the European Union activating the emergency mode and an act of the European Commission adopted under Article 28 of Regulation (EU) 2024/2747. Without both, the earlier rules apply in full.
- If you have an application for conformity assessment lodged with a notified body, keep proof of the date of lodging. The priority in Article 40² paragraph (2) applies „whether those applications were lodged before or after the activation of the emergency procedures”, so an old application does not fall behind the new ones.
- When someone offers you, in a crisis, equipment without CE marking, ask for the European Commission’s implementing act and check whether the equipment is actually listed in it. Outside that list, the absence of the marking remains an ordinary non-conformity.
- Look on the equipment for the information, in Romanian, that it is a „crisis-relevant good”. It is the sign that the equipment came in under the derogation and, at the same time, that it does not enjoy the free movement guarantee in Article 5.
- Manufacturers who use pressure equipment in their own installations, without selling it, would do well to ask the surveillance authority for a written opinion before relying on the derogation. The text of Article 40³ does not settle whether use for own purposes is covered.
- When buying used equipment after a crisis has passed, the absence of CE marking does not automatically mean the equipment is unlawful. Under Article 40¹ paragraph (3), read together with Article 40³ paragraph (7), equipment admitted under the derogation stays permanently without the marking.
- Keep on file the European Commission’s act under which the equipment came in. It contains the labelling and traceability requirements that Article 40¹ paragraph (4) makes compulsory, and which the Romanian decision does not reproduce.
Frequently asked questions
What counts as pressure equipment?
From 13 October 2026, can I buy a boiler without CE marking?
Who decides that pressure equipment counts as crisis-relevant goods?
What is a notified body and what changes for it?
What remains once the crisis is over?
What changes for manufacturers in Romania?
When does the decision enter into force?
Errors and inconsistencies in the published text
- Article 40³, paragraphs (1), (2) and (3). The rule that grants the permission, paragraph (1), covers only equipment „placed on the market”. Paragraph (2) attaches conditions to „the placing on the market or the putting into service”, paragraph (3) requires the information to be displayed on equipment „placed on the market or used by the manufacturer for its own purposes”, and Article 40¹ paragraph (4) requires the labelling and traceability requirements to be met for „the placing on the market or the use for own purposes … in accordance with Articles 40³ and 40⁴”. The three operations are distinct notions, defined separately in Article 2 of the same decision: placing on the market is the first making available on the Union market, putting into service is the first use by the user, and the manufacturer is defined partly through the use of the equipment for its own purposes. In Directive 2014/68/EU, in the form given by Article 10 of Directive (EU) 2024/2749, both Article 43c paragraph (1) and Article 43c paragraph (2) include use by the manufacturer for its own purposes in the permission itself. A manufacturer that wants to install in its own plant, during a crisis, equipment not assessed by a notified body cannot establish from the text whether the derogation covers it: paragraph (1) says no, while paragraph (3) and Article 40¹ paragraph (4) assume yes.
- Article 40², paragraph (2). The duty of notified bodies to treat applications for conformity assessment as a priority is made conditional on compliance with „the provisions of Article 29 of Regulation (EU) 2024/2747”. Article 29 of that regulation is entitled „Priority rated requests” and governs something else: requests that the European Commission addresses to economic operators to accept and prioritise the production or supply of crisis-relevant goods, with the express statement, in paragraph (3), that the operator „shall remain free to refuse that request”. That mechanism calls for consultation of the Member States, the operator’s express acceptance and an implementing act, and its addressees are economic operators, a category which, in the regulation of pressure equipment, covers the manufacturer, the authorised representative, the importer and the distributor, not notified bodies. Article 43b paragraph (2) of the directive, which this paragraph transposes, contains no reference to Article 29 of the regulation. A notified body can argue, on the letter of the text, that priority is required of it only under the conditions of Article 29, hence only after a request from the European Commission which it is entitled to refuse; the good-faith reader is left either with a firm obligation or with an optional one.
- Article 40², paragraph (3). The ban on disproportionate costs refers to „the priority regime provided for in paragraph (1)”. Paragraph (1) provides for no priority regime: it merely delimits the equipment to which the article applies, namely the equipment listed in the European Commission’s act and subject to assessment procedures involving a notified body. The priority rule sits in paragraph (2), and Article 43b paragraph (3) of the directive refers correctly to paragraph (2). As drafted, the protection of the manufacturer that lodged the application is left without object.
Editorial analysis
The most important observation about this decision only comes into view when it is set beside the directive it transposes. The European mechanism has two ends. The first: at the justified request of an economic operator, a national authority may authorise the placing on the market, or the use for own purposes, of equipment that has not been through a notified body, if compliance with the essential requirements has been demonstrated by other means; the authorisation is valid in the territory of the issuing State and of the States that recognise it, the manufacturer declares conformity on its own responsibility, and the authorising act must contain at least five elements, among them the expiry date and the measures applicable once the crisis ends. The second end: the European Commission extends that authorisation across the whole Union. Of the two ends, the decision transposes only the second. The text of Article 40³ starts straight from the European Commission’s act and nowhere says who, in Romania, issues the authorisation and under what procedure. The practical consequence is asymmetric: in a crisis, a Romanian manufacturer of vessels or boilers has nobody to ask for the authorisation, while its competitor in another Member State obtains one at home, and that competitor’s equipment can reach the Romanian market too, through the European Commission’s act. The untransposed provisions are not a drafting detail: they contained the only domestic route to the derogation.
The second observation comes out of a word-by-word comparison. Where the directive writes duties of diligence, the decision writes duties of result. Notified bodies that „make all necessary efforts to treat as a priority” become bodies that „shall treat all applications as a priority”; „make reasonable efforts to increase their capacities” becomes „adopt the measures necessary to increase capacity”; authorities that „ensure that all necessary efforts are made to provide assistance” become the authority that „provides assistance”. The tightening is, in itself, a defensible choice, since a crisis is not managed with elastic formulas. The trouble is that the move does not go the same way everywhere. On the post-crisis presumption of conformity, the directive keeps the advantage with the manufacturer and withdraws it only where there are sufficient reasons to believe that the equipment presents a risk, which puts the burden on the authority. The decision turns the reservation into a condition: the presumption operates „provided that this equipment does not present a risk”. Who has to show that the risk is absent is no longer written down. At an inspection two years later, the difference between a reservation and a condition decides whether a vessel already installed stays in service or goes back into assessment.
The third thing that calls for an account is the calendar, and here the figures are simple. The directive was adopted on 9 October 2024 and required the national provisions to be published by 29 May 2026, with application from 30 May. The Government adopted the decision on 9 October 2026, exactly two years after the date of the directive, and publication came on 13 October 2026, that is, 137 days after the deadline. Between 30 May and 12 October 2026, that is, 136 days, Regulation (EU) 2024/2747 applied in Romania, with its whole activation apparatus, but pressure equipment had no emergency procedures in domestic law. The delay did no damage only because nothing was activated in that window. Had it been, the European Commission’s act adopted under Article 28 would have bitten on a directive Romania had not transposed, and the derogation would have had no national basis. The real cost of the delay is not measured in fines, but in the scenario that did not happen.
One consequence the act produces without announcing it remains. Chapter V¹ is built as a temporary regime, yet two of its effects are permanent. Article 40¹ paragraph (3) makes Article 40³ paragraph (7) an express exception to the duration rule, so equipment admitted under the derogation will never carry CE marking and will never fall under Article 5, not even after the regime is deactivated. Article 40⁴ paragraph (2) does the same with the presumption of conformity based on the crisis standards. On the other hand, paragraphs (8) and (9) of Article 40³, the ones that give the authority its corrective measures and the duty to notify through ICSMS, are not on the list of exceptions, so they stop together with the emergency mode. The result, at the end of a crisis, is a population of equipment without CE marking left in service, for which the special power of intervention no longer exists, while the authority falls back on the general levers in Regulation (EU) 2019/1020, which applies directly. The directive has the same structure, so this is not a Romanian slip, but the decision had at its disposal precisely the untransposed provisions on the content of the authorisation in order to establish what is checked on that equipment after a crisis.
What should be changed
- The provisions on the national authorisation transposed as well. An amendment designating the competent authority, the application procedure, the mandatory elements of the authorisation, its expiry date and the rule on recognising authorisations from other Member States. In practice: a manufacturer in Romania could obtain the derogation at home, instead of waiting for one issued in another country and then extended by the European Commission.
- The reference to Article 29 of Regulation (EU) 2024/2747 removed from Article 40² paragraph (2). That article governs priority rated requests addressed to economic operators, which they are free to refuse. The result: the notified bodies’ priority obligation stays firm, as it is in the directive, and can no longer be read as optional.
- The operations covered by Article 40³ paragraph (1) aligned with the rest of the chapter. Either the permission includes use by the manufacturer for its own purposes, or paragraph (3) and Article 40¹ paragraph (4) are narrowed to placing on the market. The result: a manufacturer installing the equipment in its own plant knows from the text whether the derogation applies to it.
- The reference in Article 40² paragraph (3) corrected, from paragraph (1) to paragraph (2). The practical effect: the ban on disproportionate costs acquires an object, and a manufacturer can challenge an increased fee for priority handling of its application.
- The measures applicable once the emergency mode ends written into the act. What checks are made, within what period and by whom, on the equipment left in service without CE marking. The effect: the owner of a boiler admitted under the derogation knows what inspection to expect, and the authority is not left with the general levers alone.
- The post-crisis presumption redrafted as a reservation, not as a condition. The presumption should be lost where there are sufficient reasons to consider that the equipment presents a risk, as the directive provides. In practice: equipment already installed is not reopened at every inspection, and the burden of showing the risk lies with the authority.
- A register of the equipment admitted under the derogation published for the duration of an activation. With the number of the European Commission’s act and the equipment listed in it. The result: a buyer can check on the spot whether the absence of CE marking on a piece of equipment is covered by a European decision or not.
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. 857 of 13 October 2026, pages 8-9 16 pages PDF, 105 KB the act starts on page 8
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This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. For specific situations, consult a licensed attorney or tax advisor.