In brief

  • The minimum time in the current post, the criterion that most often kept files away from the boards, falls from 24 to 12 months. The condition sits at point j) of the mandatory criteria part of the evaluation sheet, Annex no. 11 to the Rules, and is checked up to the end of the month in which the ranking takes place. Halving the period means that an officer, warrant officer or non-commissioned officer appointed to a post in October 2026 can apply from October 2027, not from October 2028.
  • Vacant posts are published monthly, not four times a year. The central structures send the table of vacant posts by the last working day of each month, for publication the following month in the Army Information Bulletin (Buletinul Informativ al Armatei). Until now the table was sent in March, June, September and December, and publication took place in January, April, July and October.
  • Who is affected. Serving military personnel of the Ministry of National Defence, officers, warrant officers and non-commissioned officers, who are to be considered by a selection board for a vacant post or for promotion to the next rank. In addition, those on permanent missions abroad: the order opens up participation in selection in the first 6 months of their final mission year, and those who do not opt then are put through an algorithm with 5 working days in which they must choose.
Act: Order of the Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of National Defence, no. M.190/2026 amending and supplementing the Rules on the organisation and functioning of the ranking and selection system for the career development of military personnel, approved by Order of the Minister of National Defence no. M.69/2015
Published: Official Gazette of Romania (Monitorul Oficial), Part I, no. 844 of 7 October 2026, pages 6-9
In force from: 7 October 2026, the date of publication

Until 7 October 2026, an officer or a non-commissioned officer who wanted a better post had to wait two years in the post they held and catch one of the four publications of vacant posts in the year. Order of the Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of National Defence, no. M.190/2026 cuts the first condition in half, 12 months instead of 24, and moves publication to a monthly rhythm. The order has 5 articles and amends the Rules approved by Order of the Minister of National Defence no. M.69/2015 in 24 points, which touch 14 articles and 3 annexes. The move comes in the same period in which other services with special status have rewritten their own selection rules, among them the competitions in the prison system, moved online from 1 February 2027.

The army’s ranking and selection system works like this: vacant posts are published in the Army Information Bulletin, the service member submits a personal report asking to be considered, and a selection board first checks the mandatory criteria, then awards points on the selection criteria and places the candidate in a ranking. Whoever comes first receives the appointment order. The mandatory criteria are a yes-or-no filter: if a single one is not met, the file does not reach the board. Time in the current post was one of them.

The 24 points of Article I break down as follows: 18 touch articles of the Rules, 6 touch the annexes. Three provisions are repealed, namely Article 9(2), point b) of Article 29 and point b) of note 1.1 to Annex no. 11. Three paragraphs are new, in Articles 9, 15 and 33. Annex no. 1, which sets out the composition of the boards, is rewritten at 6 of its 17 positions.

The second substantive change concerns military personnel on permanent missions abroad, that is, in posts at allied commands, at military representations or at defence attaché offices. Until 7 October 2026, Article 422(11) expressly barred them from being ranked and selected while on mission. The new text allows them to ask to take part in selection for posts published in the Army Information Bulletin, during the first 6 months of the final year of the mission, counted from its estimated end date. Their interview may be held remotely, under the new Article 33(6).

For those who do not opt within that window, or who opt and are not selected, the order writes an eight-step algorithm. The central structure that manages permanent posts looks for vacant posts of at least equal rank and at most at the same hierarchical level, first within itself, then across the whole ministry, with the exception of the Directorate-General for Defence Intelligence. The posts found are made available to the service member at least 3 months before the end of the mission. The service member has 5 working days to opt, by personal report, and is obliged to opt for one of them. If several people ask for the same post, the files go to selection board no. 1, 2 or 3, depending on rank, within a maximum of 3 working days, and the board draws up the ranking within no more than 10 working days. The appointment proposals are submitted within no more than 5 working days.

The unpleasant end of the algorithm is the new paragraph (4). Anyone who refuses to opt, or for whom no vacant post is identified, is proposed for placement at the ministry’s disposal pending reassignment, „punere la dispoziție în vederea încadrării”, with effect from the day immediately following the end of the mission. In other words, they remain a member of the military, but without a post, until one is found for them. The order requires the structure to notify them forthwith, but does not say how long that status can last.

What it changes in practice

For a serving member of the military, the measurable effect is on the file. The 12-month time in the current post, halved from the old one, can double the number of those who pass the mandatory-criteria filter, and monthly publication multiplies by three the chances of applying in a year. The exception in note 1.1, point b), to Annex no. 11, which lowered the period to 12 months for posts in multinational structures on Romanian territory and for brigadier general and major general posts outside the Defence Staff, is repealed because it no longer has any purpose: the general rule has reached the same figure.

A second effect cuts the other way. Point f) of the mandatory criteria used to recognise the performance of the duties of a similar post „prin împuternicire și/sau detașare pe o perioadă de cel puțin un an”, by acting appointment and/or secondment for a period of at least one year. The new text keeps only the acting appointment, so secondment no longer proves time in a similar post. In exchange, point f) gains two new exemptions: it is not checked for military personnel promoted to the next rank exceptionally or promoted in post together with that promotion, who for that very reason could no longer hold the mandatory posts, and it is not checked for posts in the field of high-performance sport at the Army Sports Club „Steaua”.

At board level, the order raises two voting thresholds. Decisions in the situations under Articles 22 and 23, that is, approval of promotion to the next rank and admission to the competitions organised under the law, are now taken by half plus one of the votes of those attending the meeting, a formula that replaces the earlier „majoritatea simplă”, the simple majority. And the meeting of selection board no. 1 at which the award of the rank of brigadier general with one star and the promotion of generals to the next rank are approved requires the attendance of the chair and of all the members, not two thirds.

Scoring becomes a little more predictable. The two selection criteria at points h) and i), the compatibility of experience and of professional training with the requirements of the post, were marked from 1 to 10 with no written reference point. Article 17(9) now adds the reference: the mark is given according to the performance and the professional training achieved in the posts held over the course of the career, in line with the requirements of the vacant post. At the interview, Article 35(5) establishes that motivation, communication skills, flexibility of thought, spontaneity and emotional control receive a single score, not one each.

The fifth effect is administrative, but it is felt in the file. Generating the sheet with the main data from the RESMIL application was, under Article 29, point b), the responsibility of the board’s technical secretariat. That point is repealed. In its place, the service member has to state in the personal report that they have checked the accuracy of the data in the record sheet generated by RESMIL and that they have certified by signature the veracity of the data in the original service record, while the human resources structures send the sheets directly to the technical secretariats. Responsibility for the data in the file therefore moves to the candidate and to their own structure.

What has changed compared with the previous situation

A comparison with the version of the Rules in force until 7 October 2026, consolidated on 15 July 2026, shows seven differences that matter.

First: the minimum time in the current post, 24 months in the old point j), 12 months in the new one. Second: the publication of vacant posts, four times a year until now, monthly from now on. Third: Article 9(2), which allowed publication in months other than the four, with the approval of the head of the Directorate-General for Human Resources Management, is repealed, because the monthly rhythm makes it pointless. Fourth: the old text of point a) also required the table to be posted on the General Secretariat’s INTRAMAN page; the new wording no longer includes this, so the obligation to put it on the army intranet as well disappears from the Rules, without the order announcing it.

Fifth: the window to opt for those ending permanent missions. The old text required the posts to be identified and the options to be requested at least 6 months before the end of the tour, and the option to be expressed at least 3 months beforehand. Roughly 3 months were left between the two markers, that is, around 66 working days. The new wording makes the posts available at least 3 months beforehand and requires the option within 5 working days.

Sixth: Article 402(2), on general-officer posts that are to fall vacant on a certain date through the holder’s transfer to the reserve. The old wording said that these „se pot publica”, may be published, 3 months before the vacancy, „cu avizul Direcției generale management resurse umane”, with the approval of the Directorate-General for Human Resources Management. The new one says that they „se publică”, are published, no more than 3 months beforehand. Publication becomes mandatory, the time limit becomes a ceiling instead of a fixed marker, and the approval requirement disappears.

Seventh: the power to approve the interview boards for general-officer posts in the Defence Staff. The new paragraph (71) of Article 34 splits it into two tiers. For lieutenant general posts, the Minister of National Defence approves. For brigadier general and major general posts, the Chief of the Defence Staff approves, and the minister only designates one of the members of the interview board, at the same time as approving the publication of the post. Until now the minister approved in every case.

Annex no. 1 changes at 6 positions. The most visible is at selection board no. 1, the one that considers general-officer posts: the sixth member is no longer the commander of the Joint Logistic Command, but the commander of the Joint Forces Command. At board no. 4 the director of the Directorate-General for Human Resources Management drops out, at board no. 7 the deputy commander of the Naval Component Command drops out, at board no. 10 the chief of staff of the River Flotilla drops out, at board no. 16 the director of the Directorate-General for Legal Affairs comes in, and board no. 11, at the Joint Logistic Command, is recomposed almost entirely.

Two transitional rules close the order. Article II states that selections for posts published before 7 October 2026 are completed under the rules in force on the date the post was published. Article III states that the new appointment procedure for those ending permanent missions applies „în totalitate”, in full, to military personnel who, on 7 October 2026, had more than 6 months left of their mission. Article IV orders the republication of Order no. M.69/2015, with the renumbering of its texts, which means that references to articles with a superscript, of the Article 422 kind, will disappear on republication.

Advantages and disadvantages

What it improves

  • The minimum time in the current post falls from 24 to 12 months, so a service member appointed in October 2026 can apply from October 2027.
  • Vacant posts are published monthly, not four times a year, so a post that falls vacant in February no longer waits until April.
  • Military personnel on permanent missions abroad can apply for published posts, which was expressly forbidden to them before, and their interview can be held remotely.
  • The marks from 1 to 10 on the compatibility of experience and training are given a written reference point, and the aspects covered at the interview are given a single score, not several.
  • For general-officer posts that fall vacant on a certain date, publication is no longer optional, and the approval requirement that could delay it disappears.
  • Proposals to publish general-officer posts have, under the new Article 9(5), a written time limit, 30 days from the vacancy, where before there was none.

What remains a problem

  • Secondment no longer proves the performance of the duties of a similar post at point f) of the mandatory criteria, even though Annex no. 111, for general-officer posts, keeps it.
  • A service member ending a permanent mission has 5 working days to choose their next post, with an obligation to choose, against roughly 3 months in the text that was replaced.
  • Refusing to opt leads to placement at the ministry’s disposal, that is, to the loss of the post, without the order saying how long that situation can last.
  • Selection board decisions remain final. The Rules provide no avenue of challenge, and the order does not introduce one, even though it touches the very part of the scoring left to the board’s discretion.
  • The strengthened threshold at board no. 1, the chair and all the members, drops back to two thirds if the meeting is reconvened the following day.
  • The obligation to post the table of vacant posts on the INTRAMAN page as well leaves the text without explanation, so a single official channel of information remains, the Army Information Bulletin.

Practical advice

  1. Count the months from the date of appointment to your current post up to the end of the month in which the board meets, not up to the date you file the report. Point j) fixes the moment of verification there, and one month more or less decides whether the file reaches the board.
  2. If your time in post was between 12 and 24 months and you were rejected on that criterion, check the following month’s publication. From 7 October 2026 the condition is met, and the posts come up again every month.
  3. Check the record sheet generated by RESMIL before signing your personal report. The new point b) of Article 26(1) requires you to declare in the report that you have checked the data, and generating the sheet is no longer the board secretariat’s task.
  4. If you proved time in a similar post through secondment, prepare other evidence. Point f) now recognises only an acting appointment, for a period of at least one year.
  5. If you are on a permanent mission abroad, calculate the first 6 months of the final year of the mission from its estimated end date and file your application within that window. Outside it you automatically fall into the algorithm with its 5 working days to opt.
  6. When you receive the list of posts made available, reply in writing even if none of the options suits you. Refusing to opt leads to a proposal for placement at the ministry’s disposal, whereas an option expressed keeps you in the ranking.
  7. For selections already under way, read the rules in force on the date the post was published, not the new ones. Article II keeps them applicable until completion.

Frequently asked questions

When does the new 12-month period apply?
From 7 October 2026, the date the order was published in the Official Gazette of Romania, Part I, no. 844. Article V provides for no deferred date, so entry into force is on the date of publication. For selections for posts published before that date, however, the old rules apply, under Article II.
Is the period checked when the report is filed or at the board meeting?
At the meeting. Point j) of the mandatory criteria requires the length of service of at least 12 months in the current post to be completed by no later than the end of the month in which the ranking takes place within the selection board.
How often are vacant posts published from now on?
Monthly. The central structures send the table to the General Secretariat by the last working day of each month, and publication takes place the following month, in the Army Information Bulletin. Until 7 October 2026 the table was sent in March, June, September and December.
Can I apply if I am on a permanent mission abroad?
Yes, from now on. You can ask to take part in ranking and selection for posts published in the Army Information Bulletin, during the first 6 months of the final year of the mission, calculated from its estimated end date. The interview can be held remotely. Until 7 October 2026, the Rules expressly prohibited selection during a mission.
What happens if I do not opt for any of the posts offered on my return?
The head of the central structure that manages permanent posts submits the proposal for placement at the ministry’s disposal pending reassignment, with effect from the day immediately following the end of the mission, and is obliged to notify you forthwith. The option is expressed by personal report, within no more than 5 working days of the posts being communicated, and the text states expressly that you are obliged to opt.
Is there any way to challenge a selection board decision?
Not in the Rules. Article 25(1) provides that selection board decisions are final and are implemented by the competent commanders, and Order no. M.190/2026 introduces no procedure for challenging them. The general remedies outside these Rules remain.
Does secondment still count for the criterion on time in similar posts?
No, for posts assessed with Annex no. 11. Point f) now recognises only an acting appointment, for at least one year, in a military unit at the same hierarchical level as the unit in which the vacant post is located. Annex no. 111, used for general-officer posts in the Defence Staff, keeps the wording with acting appointment and/or secondment.
Does anything change in the way the boards vote?
Yes. For the situations under Articles 22 and 23, decisions are adopted by half plus one of the votes of those attending the meeting, instead of the simple majority. And the meeting of board no. 1 for approving the award of the rank of brigadier general with one star and the promotion of generals requires the presence of the chair and of all the members; if it is not reached, the meeting is reconvened the following day, with at least two thirds of the members.

Errors and inconsistencies in the published text

  • Article 29, point c) of the Rules refers to a point that the same order repeals. Point 13 of Article I repeals point b) of Article 29, the one that gave the technical secretariat the task of generating from the RESMIL application the sheets with the candidates’ main data. Point c), untouched by the order, continues to say that the technical secretariat is „să analizeze documentele prevăzute la lit. a) și b) pentru verificarea îndeplinirii criteriilor obligatorii prevăzute în secțiunea A a anexei nr. 11 sau a anexei nr. 111”, to examine the documents provided for at points a) and b) in order to check that the mandatory criteria set out in Section A of the applicable evaluation sheet are met. Point c) is the very gateway to the board, the step at which it is decided whether a file is examined or rejected, and after 7 October 2026 the text no longer shows in full which documents the check is made on. That this is an omission rather than a choice is clear from the rest of the order: the other two references to Article 29, point b), were corrected in the same act, at point 2, for Article 9(1), point e), and at point 5, for Article 12, point b). The third was left as it was. The version consolidated on 7 October 2026 published on legislatie.just.ro shows point b) as „abrogată”, repealed, and point c) with its reference unchanged.

Editorial analysis

The order solves a real problem and solves it in the right direction. Counted from the date of appointment, a mandatory 24 months in post meant that a service member could not apply even once in the first two years, and in the third year caught four publications. With 12 months and monthly publication, between the thirteenth month and the twenty-fourth there are twelve chances, where before there were none. For an army reorganising its structures and with posts to fill, that is a lever of internal mobility, not a favour done to candidates.

The comparison with the text that was replaced shows, moreover, that the drop to 12 months is not a relaxation but an alignment. Annex no. 111, the evaluation sheet used for brigadier general, major general and lieutenant general posts in the Defence Staff, already required 12 months, at point g) of the mandatory criteria. The double threshold therefore applied to officers up to colonel, to warrant officers and to non-commissioned officers, that is, to exactly the category with the greatest need to move, and did not apply to the general-officer tier. The order undoes an inversion, it does not create an advantage.

What is not apparent from reading the act end to end is the ratio between the time limits the order imposes on the service member and those the administration gives itself. A service member ending a permanent mission gets 5 working days to choose their next post, with an obligation to choose, whereas in the text that was replaced they had the interval between the 6-month marker and the 3-month one, roughly 3 calendar months, around 66 working days. Their window has shrunk by a factor of about 13. In the same days, the administrative chain around them has 3 working days to send the documents, 10 for the ranking in the board and 5 for the appointment proposals, that is, 18 working days, while the structure that merely submits a proposal to publish a general-officer post gets, under the new Article 9(5), 30 calendar days, around 22 working days. The person moving their family from one country to another decides in 5 days; the person signing a proposal has 22.

A second calculation shows that the algorithm may not fit inside its own window. Point c) makes the posts available at least 3 months before the end of the mission, while paragraph (3) requires the appointment proposals to reach the Directorate-General for Human Resources Management at least one month beforehand. There are two months between the two markers, that is, 42 or 43 working days, depending on where the public holidays fall. A single pass through the algorithm consumes 23 working days: 5 for the option, 3 for transmission, 10 for the ranking, 5 for the proposals. Point g), however, provides for the steps at points d) to f) to be repeated for those who did not come first, and one repetition costs a further 18 working days, so 41 in all, with one or two days of margin. A second repetition, which point g) does not prohibit and which any situation with three candidates for the same post calls for, reaches 59 working days and no longer fits. The order places no limit on the number of repetitions.

Two smaller details say something about the way the text was written. The wording „prin împuternicire și/sau detașare”, by acting appointment and/or secondment, was cut at point f) of Annex no. 11, but remained at point i) of Annex no. 111, even though the same order enters Annex no. 111 at point 24. From 7 October 2026, a one-year secondment proves time in a similar post if the candidate is applying for a general-officer post in the Defence Staff and no longer proves it if the candidate is applying for a lieutenant colonel post. And the strengthened threshold at selection board no. 1, the chair and all six members for approving general-officer ranks, turns into a one-day wait: if full attendance is not reached, the meeting is reconvened the following day with two thirds of the members, that is, 4 out of 6. The order does repair an old overlap, though: paragraphs (6) and (71) of Article 34 had, from 4 February 2025 to 7 October 2026, that is, 610 days, the same scope and the same solution, and the new paragraph (71) is given content of its own.

What should be changed

  • Correction of the reference in Article 29, point c). An erratum replacing „documentele prevăzute la lit. a) și b)” with „documentele prevăzute la lit. a)” would close the only point at which the new text does not read on its own, namely the step that decides whether a file is admitted to the board.
  • A time limit to opt proportionate to the decision. Ten working days instead of the 5 under Article 422(2), point d) would fit inside the two-month window even with two repetitions and would leave time for a decision that involves moving a family from another country.
  • A limit on the number of repetitions under point g). Writing in a limit, two repetitions for instance, and the consequence of exceeding it would prevent the situation in which the algorithm ends after the one-month marker under paragraph (3) and the service member is placed at the ministry’s disposal because of the calendar rather than because of a refusal of their own.
  • Clarification of Article III for those with 6 months of mission or less. The order says what applies „în totalitate”, in full, to those with more than 6 months, but not what applies to the rest, even though for them the 3-month marker under point c) has already passed. A sentence showing which steps are skipped and who decides would spare the human resources structures an interpretation of their own.
  • Alignment of point i) of Annex no. 111 with point f) of Annex no. 11. Either secondment counts on both evaluation sheets, or it counts on neither. The present difference means that the same professional experience is recognised for a general-officer post and refused for a senior officer post.
  • An avenue for challenging selection board decisions. The order touches the very subjective part of the scoring, the two criteria marked from 1 to 10 and the interview aspects brought together into a single score, yet the decisions remain final under Article 25. A time limit for a challenge and a body to decide it would give a rejected candidate a route to take before going to court.

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. 844 of 7 October 2026, pages 6-9 16 pages PDF, 108 KB the act starts on page 6

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