In brief

  • Government Decision no. 822/2026 adds a chapter of emergency procedures to the decision governing simple pressure vessels, a chapter that is set in motion only if the European Union declares an internal market emergency and places these vessels on the list of crisis-relevant goods.
  • For the duration of such a crisis, notified bodies deal with conformity assessment applications as a matter of priority, and vessels covered by an implementing act of the European Commission may reach the Romanian market without the CE marking and without the usual inscriptions, carrying instead a statement in Romanian that they are placed on the market as a „crisis-relevant good”.
  • Until such an activation, nothing changes for manufacturers, importers and distributors of pressure vessels. The only immediate effect is the replacement of the name of the ministry in charge, in 19 places in the 2015 text.
Act: Government Decision no. 822/2026 amending and supplementing Government Decision no. 824/2015 laying down the conditions for making simple pressure vessels available on the market
Published: Official Gazette of Romania, Part I, no. 863 of 15 October 2026, pages 15-16
In force from: 15 October 2026

The air receivers of compressors, the cylinders that feed lorry brakes and the other simple pressure vessels have had, since 15 October 2026, a set of rules that apply only in a crisis. Government Decision no. 822/2026 supplements Government Decision no. 824/2015 with a new chapter, V1, entitled „Emergency procedures”, made up of five articles, from 361 to 365. The mechanism is a standby one: it stays inert until the day the Council of the European Union activates the internal market emergency mode and places pressure vessels on the list of crisis-relevant goods, and the European Commission then activates, by an implementing act, the emergency procedures in the product legislation.

The vessels concerned are welded, series-produced ones, designed for an internal pressure greater than 0.5 bar, whose maximum working pressure does not exceed 30 bar and whose pressure multiplied by capacity stays below 10,000 bar·l. Below 50 bar·l they are manufactured according to sound engineering practice, with no external check. Above that threshold, the essential safety requirements in Annex no. 1 come into play, together with type-examination by a notified body and the EU declaration of conformity. These are precisely the steps that the new chapter can shorten, replace or skip when the internal market is no longer working normally.

The decision transposes Article 4 of Directive (EU) 2024/2749, which appeared in the Official Journal of the European Union, L series, of 8 November 2024, and it rests on Regulation (EU) 2024/2747, which created the vigilance mode and the emergency mode for the internal market. That same directive required Member States to adopt and publish their transposition measures by 29 May 2026 and to apply them from 30 May 2026. The Romanian text was adopted on 9 October 2026 and published on 15 October 2026, 139 days past the deadline.

What it changes in practice

As long as no crisis has been declared at European Union level, the decision asks nothing of anybody. Article 361 ties the whole chapter to three conditions that have to be met at the same time: an implementing act of the European Commission, adopted under Article 28 of Regulation (EU) 2024/2747, activating the emergency procedures for the vessels in question; the designation of those vessels as crisis-relevant goods by an act of the Council of the European Union, under Article 18(4) of the same regulation; and the duration of the emergency mode, which may not exceed six months per activation, with successive extensions of at most six months each.

Once activated, the first practical effect concerns manufacturers. Notified bodies have to deal as a matter of priority with all conformity assessment applications for the vessels on the European Commission’s list, whether the applications were lodged before or after activation, and that priority may not turn into disproportionate additional costs for those who lodged them. Notified bodies also have to make reasonable efforts to increase their testing capacity. For a manufacturer waiting on a type-examination, this means that the file moves up the queue without paying for fast-tracking.

The second effect is the one most visible to the buyer. Where the European Commission extends the validity of an authorisation issued by one Member State to the whole of the Union, the vessels covered by that act may be placed on the Romanian market without going through the assessment procedures that require the mandatory involvement of a notified body. Such a vessel displays the information that it is placed on the market as a „crisis-relevant good”, with the content set by the European Commission’s act, and that information and the labels have to be clear, easy to understand, legible and drafted in Romanian.

The price of this shortcut becomes clear if Article 363(7) is set beside Annex no. 3 to the 2015 decision. The vessel carries neither the CE marking nor the inscriptions required by point 1 of that annex, namely the maximum working pressure, the maximum and minimum working temperature, the capacity, the name and address of the manufacturer, and the type and identification of the series or batch. All that is left on it is the crisis-relevant good statement. At the same time, the vessel no longer benefits from the free movement provided for in Article 5, and the State Inspectorate for the Control of Boilers, Pressure Vessels and Lifting Equipment, hereinafter ISCIR, may take corrective and restrictive measures against it, which it immediately reports to the European Commission and to the other Member States through the Information and Communication System for Market Surveillance, ICSMS.

The third effect concerns standards. Where no harmonised standards have been published for the essential safety requirements, or where the crisis prevents manufacturers from using them any longer, the European Commission may indicate other standards by implementing act or may lay down common specifications. Vessels complying with these are deemed to comply with the essential safety requirements, and the presumption holds until the last day of the emergency mode or until another date set by the European Commission. From the day after the mode expires or is deactivated, manufacturers may no longer rely on it, but vessels already placed on the market continue to be deemed compliant.

Finally, ISCIR gives priority to market surveillance activities for the vessels on the European Commission’s list, coordinated through the Union Product Compliance Network, and supports the authorities of other Member States, including by sending expert teams or by making testing capacity available. Quite apart from this whole mechanism, the decision replaces the name „Ministry of Economy, Trade and Tourism” with „Ministry of Economy, Digitalisation, Entrepreneurship and Tourism” in the 2015 text, the only amendment that applies from day one.

What has changed compared with the previous situation

  • There was previously no crisis regime at all. Government Decision no. 824/2015, in force since 21 October 2015, had a single route: essential requirements, conformity assessment by a notified body above 50 bar·l, EU declaration of conformity, CE marking. A sudden shortage of vessels changed nothing along that route.
  • Priority in assessment becomes a duty, not a favour. Until now, the order in which a notified body took up files was its own business. Article 362 now requires it to deal as a matter of priority with applications for the vessels on the crisis list, without disproportionate additional cost.
  • The CE marking may lawfully be missing. Until 15 October 2026, a vessel without the CE marking and without the inscriptions in Annex no. 3 was non-compliant by definition. Article 363(7) creates the first category of vessels that circulate lawfully without them, on the strength of an act of the European Commission.
  • The presumption of conformity gains a second source. Until now, Article 12 of the 2015 decision tied it exclusively to the Romanian standards adopting harmonised standards. The new Article 364 adds the standards and common specifications indicated by the European Commission, for the duration of the crisis.
  • Market surveillance acquires cross-border duties. ISCIR has to assist the authorities of other Member States, with experts and with testing capacity, and to notify through ICSMS the measures taken against vessels that entered the market under the emergency regime.
  • The ministry in charge has its name brought up to date. The 2015 text referred, in 19 places, to a ministry that no longer bears that name.

Advantages and disadvantages

What it improves

  • Romania finally has the crisis mechanism that the other Member States have, so Romanian manufacturers will not be left outside a supply chain activated at European level.
  • Priority in conformity assessment comes with a limit: moving up the queue cannot cost disproportionately more.
  • The presumption of conformity based on common specifications gives manufacturers a way out when harmonised standards do not exist or can no longer be used.
  • Vessels placed on the market during the crisis remain deemed compliant once it is over, so the buyer does not wake up with goods that have become unlawful overnight.
  • The crisis-relevant good statement has to be written in Romanian, whereas the directive was content with a language easily understood by users.

What remains a problem

  • A vessel without the CE marking also loses its basic technical inscriptions. Whoever installs it can no longer read off it the maximum working pressure, the working temperatures, the capacity or the manufacturer.
  • None of the new duties in Chapter V1 carries a sanction. The list of administrative offences in Article 38 has been left untouched, so the statement in Romanian is protected by no fine at all.
  • Romania has not transposed the possibility for an authority of its own to issue a derogation authorisation itself. A Romanian manufacturer has nobody to ask, while competitors in the States that did transpose that paragraph can obtain one at home.
  • The decision appeared 139 days past the transposition deadline, so between 30 May and 15 October 2026 a European activation would have found Romania without instruments.
  • The text enters into force on the day of publication, with no settling-in period for the notified bodies that have to reorganise the order of their files.

Practical advice

  1. If you manufacture simple pressure vessels, check which pressure-times-capacity category each model falls into. Only those above 50 bar·l go through a notified body, so only they have anything to gain from the priority in Article 362.
  2. Ask the notified body you work with how it will apply the priority rule and what it understands by „disproportionate additional costs”. That answer is worth obtaining in writing before a crisis, not during one.
  3. If you import or distribute vessels, ask your supplier for the European Commission implementing act on which the absence of the CE marking rests. Without that act, an unmarked vessel remains non-compliant and is withdrawn from the market.
  4. When you buy a vessel placed on the market as a crisis-relevant good, ask in writing for the data that no longer appears on it: the maximum working pressure, the working temperatures, the capacity and the batch identification. Without them, installation and maintenance are guesswork.
  5. Keep proof of the date on which you placed a vessel on the market under the emergency regime. The protection in Article 364(4) covers only vessels already placed on the market, and proving the date falls on the economic operator.
  6. Do not mistake the presumption of conformity for an absence of liability. If ISCIR considers that a standard or a common specification does not fully cover the essential safety requirements, it orders the vessels concerned to be assessed under the procedure in Article 33, with all the measures that may follow.
  7. Check the name of the ministry in your internal documents and contracts. References to the „Ministry of Economy, Trade and Tourism” have to be updated to the new name.

Frequently asked questions

Does anything change for me from 15 October 2026?
If you are not a notified body and you do not track the name of the ministry in your own documents, no. The emergency procedures apply only after the Council of the European Union activates the internal market emergency mode, places pressure vessels on the list of crisis-relevant goods, and the European Commission then activates the emergency procedures for them. Until that happens, the 2015 rules remain the only ones that apply.
What are simple pressure vessels?
Welded, series-produced vessels, designed for an internal pressure greater than 0.5 bar, whose maximum working pressure does not exceed 30 bar and whose pressure multiplied by capacity stays below 10,000 bar·l. In practice, this covers the air receivers of compressors and the air cylinders in the braking systems of heavy vehicles.
Does a vessel without the CE marking become lawful at any time?
No. The absence of the CE marking is permitted only for the vessels listed in an implementing act by which the European Commission extends to the whole Union the validity of an authorisation issued by one Member State, and only on the conditions set out in that act. Outside that situation, an unmarked vessel remains non-compliant, and breaching the marking rules is punished with a fine of 5,000 to 10,000 lei, plus withdrawal from the market.
How long does an internal market emergency mode last?
It is activated by an implementing act of the Council of the European Union, for a period that may not exceed six months. The Council may extend it by successive periods of at most six months each. The measures in Chapter V1 apply only for that period, with one exception: the rule on the absence of the CE marking continues after the mode expires or is deactivated.
What happens to vessels bought during the crisis once the crisis is over?
They stay on the market. Those complying with the standards or common specifications indicated by the European Commission and already placed on the market are deemed to comply with the essential safety requirements both after the European act expires and after the emergency mode is deactivated. For new vessels, manufacturers may no longer rely on the presumption from the day after the mode ends.
Who checks that these rules are observed?
Market surveillance stays with the State Inspectorate for the Control of Boilers, Pressure Vessels and Lifting Equipment. It gives priority to the vessels on the European list, may take corrective and restrictive measures against vessels that entered the market under the emergency regime, and immediately reports them to the European Commission and to the other Member States through ICSMS. The authority competent for notifying bodies remains the ministry of economy.

Errors and inconsistencies in the published text

  • Article 364, paragraph (1) against paragraph (3). Paragraph (1) states that, „by way of derogation from Articles 13 and 14”, vessels designated as crisis-relevant goods may be placed on the market under the standards and common specifications laid down by the European Commission. Article 13 is the conformity assessment procedure and Article 14 is the EU declaration of conformity, so the text taken on its own exempts these vessels from type-examination, from the production control module and from the declaration of conformity. Paragraph (3) of the same article, however, builds a different mechanism: compliance with those standards „is deemed to be” compliance with the essential safety requirements, that is a presumption which makes sense only if the procedure in Article 13 carries on, against a different technical benchmark. The European provision transposed here contains no derogation whatsoever from Articles 13 and 14. A manufacturer may in good faith arrive at two opposite solutions, either doing nothing at all under Article 13 or going through it in full against alternative standards, and the difference between them is punished under Article 38 with a fine of 5,000 to 10,000 lei and withdrawal from the market.
  • Article 362, paragraph (2). The text requires notified bodies to deal as a matter of priority with conformity assessment applications „in accordance with Article 29 of Regulation (EU) 2024/2747”. Article 29 of that regulation governs something else: the priority rated requests that the European Commission may address to economic operators to produce or supply crisis-relevant goods, requests that the addressee is expressly free to refuse, that are made at a fair price and that take the form of an implementing act only once the operator has expressly accepted. The European text transposed in this paragraph refers nowhere to Article 29. With that reference in place, it cannot be established whether the priority required of the notified body is unconditional, as the first half of the sentence suggests, or whether it presupposes a priority rated request from the European Commission, which the body might refuse.
  • Article 364, paragraph (4). Vessels already placed on the market are deemed compliant „following the expiry or repeal of an implementing act adopted under paragraph (3)”. Paragraph (3) of Article 364 provides for the adoption of no implementing act at all; it establishes the presumption of conformity. The European acts indicating standards or laying down common specifications appear in paragraph (1). In the directive the equivalent reference was correct, because there paragraph (3) was indeed the one governing the adoption of those acts; in the renumbering carried out in the decision, the link snapped. The condition on which the protection of vessels already sold depends cannot be fulfilled as it is written.

Editorial analysis

The decision solves a real problem. The European mechanism is carefully built, with conditions that all have to be met, with a limited duration and with a controlled exit from the regime, and the transposition follows it largely word for word. Two choices made by the Romanian drafter even deserve praise: the crisis-relevant good statement has to be written in Romanian, not merely in a language accessible to users, and the notification of market surveillance measures is given a concrete channel, ICSMS, in place of the general formula in the directive.

The weak part lies in what was left out. Article 363 is entitled „Derogation from the conformity assessment procedures involving the mandatory involvement of a notified body”, yet it gives nobody in Romania the power to grant such a derogation. The corresponding European text has nine paragraphs, and five of them were not transposed: the possibility for a Member State to authorise placing on the market itself, the recognition of another Member State’s authorisation before the European Commission’s act, the manufacturer’s declaration on its own responsibility, the mandatory minimum content of the authorisation, including its expiry date, and the clause preserving the ordinary procedures. The result is an asymmetry that hits Romanian industry: in a crisis, a manufacturer in another Member State applies for and obtains a national authorisation, while one in Romania has nobody to apply to and has to wait for authorisation in a foreign State, followed by the extension of that authorisation to the whole Union by the European Commission. On a market in shortage, that lag is measured in lost orders.

The second weakness comes to light only when the new chapter is set beside the old articles, which were left untouched. The list of administrative offences in the 2015 decision, Article 38, refers to Articles 3, 4, 6 to 9, 11, 13, 14 and 16, with fines between 2,000 and 10,000 lei. Not one of the five new articles appears there. The consequence is paradoxical: the CE marking, which the emergency regime takes out of play, is protected by a fine of 5,000 to 10,000 lei plus withdrawal from the market, while the statement that replaces it, the only information left on the vessel, is protected by nothing. This is also where it becomes clear how much the buyer loses: point 1 of Annex no. 3, which Article 363(7) suspends, covers not only the CE marking but also the maximum working pressure, the maximum and minimum working temperature, the capacity, the name and address of the manufacturer, and the type and batch identification. A fitter who receives such a vessel can no longer read off it even the pressure at which he is allowed to use it.

The third point is a substantive change made discreetly. The directive said that vessels complying with common specifications remain deemed compliant after the crisis, unless there are sufficient reasons to believe that they present a risk to the health or safety of persons. The decision took that exception out of paragraph (4) and placed in paragraph (5) a duty for ISCIR to order an assessment under the procedure in Article 33. The difference has practical consequences: in the European version, the risky vessel never acquires the status of compliant; in the Romanian version, it acquires that status and keeps it until ISCIR finishes the assessment. There is also the matter of pace. The Union gave Member States 567 days from the publication of the directive in the Official Journal of the European Union until the transposition deadline, the Romanian administration used 706 days, that is 139 past the deadline, and the act written at the end of them gives its addressees zero days, being in force from the day of publication.

What should be changed

  • Transpose the national authorisation as well. A paragraph establishing which authority in Romania, the ministry of economy or ISCIR, may authorise placing on the market without a notified body, on the reasoned application of an economic operator, together with the minimum content of the authorisation and its expiry date. In practice, a Romanian manufacturer would obtain the derogation at home, in a matter of days, instead of waiting for the route through another Member State and through the European Commission.
  • Correct the derogation from Articles 13 and 14. Paragraph (1) of Article 364 should be rewritten as a presumption of conformity against a different technical benchmark, not as an exemption from conformity assessment and from the EU declaration of conformity. That way the manufacturer would know whether type-examination is still needed, and ISCIR would know what to check.
  • Remove the reference to Article 29 of Regulation (EU) 2024/2747. The priority required of notified bodies has nothing to do with the priority rated requests that the European Commission addresses to manufacturers. Once removed, a notified body could no longer invoke a non-existent priority rated request as grounds for refusal.
  • Complete Article 38 with the offences from the new chapter. At the very least the absence or non-compliance of the crisis-relevant good statement in Romanian, and failure to observe the conditions in the European Commission’s act. That way the information left alone on the vessel would be protected just as the marking it replaces is.
  • Keep the basic technical data on the vessel. A rule requiring that, even without the CE marking, the vessel carry the maximum working pressure, the working temperatures, the capacity and the batch identification. The result: the fitter and the service engineer could work safely with a vessel that entered the market under the emergency regime.
  • Make it consistent who designates crisis-relevant goods. Article 361(2) correctly refers to the act of the Council of the European Union, but Article 364(1) attributes the designation to the European Commission. The reader would then know which European act to look for in order to check whether the regime has been activated for his product.

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. 863 of 15 October 2026, pages 15-16 16 pages PDF, 135 KB the act starts on page 15

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