In brief

  • 99 million lei of the 141.8 million come from the state budget. Regia Autonomă Tehnologii pentru Energia Nucleară, the state-owned autonomous public undertaking that carries Romania’s nuclear research, has approved total revenue of 141,771 thousand lei for 2026, of which 99,000 thousand lei are transfers from the budget. That is 69.8% of everything the undertaking collects in a year.
  • A profit of 376,000 lei, or 3 lei for every 1,000 lei of revenue. Approved total expenses come to 141,395 thousand lei, and the gross result ends up on the plus side by 376 thousand lei. Out of that, the state budget receives 179 thousand lei back in payments, after having put in 99 million.
  • Overdue payments of 8 million lei, 21 times the profit for the year. The undertaking enters the budget year with 8,000 thousand lei of invoices left unpaid when due, as much as 5.7% of a full year of expenses, and the decision does not say by when they will be settled.
  • The budget is approved with 81 days left in the year it covers. The decision is published on 12 October 2026, after 284 of the 365 days of the financial year, that is 77.8% of it, had passed without an approved spending ceiling.
Act: Government Decision no. 811/2026 on the approval of the revenue and expenditure budget for 2026 for Regia Autonomă Tehnologii pentru Energia Nucleară, which operates under the authority of the Ministry of Energy
Published: Official Gazette of Romania, Part I, no. 853 of 12 October 2026, pages 9-11
In force from: 12 October 2026, the date of publication in the Official Gazette of Romania (Monitorul Oficial), because the decision does not provide for a later date

The state is putting 99 million lei into an undertaking that sets out to turn that money into a profit of 376,000 lei. On 9 October 2026 the Government approved, through a decision published three days later in the Official Gazette of Romania, Part I, no. 853 of 12 October 2026, the 2026 revenue and expenditure budget of Regia Autonomă Tehnologii pentru Energia Nucleară, known by its initials as RATEN. For a state-owned company, a revenue and expenditure budget is the document that fixes how much it is entitled to collect and how much it is entitled to spend in a year, chapter by chapter: wages, goods and services, investment, taxes.

RATEN has its registered office in Mioveni, in Argeș county, at Str. Câmpului no. 1, and is registered with the unique code 32306920, details supplied by the annex to the decision itself. Under it sits the research side of the Romanian nuclear programme, with the Institute for Nuclear Research at Mioveni, also known as ICN Pitești, and with the TRIGA research reactor. The undertaking does not sell electricity into the grid. Its work is on fuel, materials and nuclear safety, that is, on the part nobody sees in an electricity bill, but without which the Cernavodă power plant would have no one in the country to check its technology. That is why this budget weighs more than its accounting: it is the sum the state sets aside for its own capacity to understand what it has in operation.

The annex to the decision is reproduced in facsimile, with the amounts expressed in „thousand lei”, and it has a single column of values, headed „Propuneri 2026”, that is, the proposals column. There is no column with the previous year’s outturn and none with the estimates for the years ahead, so nothing in the act lets the reader see whether these figures are going up or down compared with 2025.

What it changes in practice

The decision has a single article and does nothing beyond approving the annex. The entire normative content sits in a table of 59 rows, and from 12 October 2026 each row becomes a ceiling the undertaking may not exceed without a fresh Government decision.

On the revenue side, the structure is this: total revenue of 141,771 thousand lei, of which 141,354 thousand lei operating revenue and 417 thousand lei financial revenue. Inside operating revenue, the line for transfers from the budget stands at 99,000 thousand lei, while the subsidies line is left blank. By subtraction, the undertaking plans to collect 42,354 thousand lei from its own activity, which together with financial revenue makes up 30.2% of what it takes in. The rest, almost 70 bani out of every leu, comes from the taxpayer.

On the expenditure side, the approved total is 141,395 thousand lei: 141,175 thousand lei operating expenses and 220 thousand lei financial expenses. The largest item is staff, at 97,247 thousand lei, that is 68.8% of all the year’s expenses. Of this, 89,125 thousand lei are wage-related expenses, broken down into 79,676 thousand lei of salaries and 9,449 thousand lei of bonuses, to which are added 6,183 thousand lei of employer contributions, 1,874 thousand lei for the management contract and for the other management and supervisory bodies, plus 65 thousand lei of other staff costs. Goods and services account for 36,846 thousand lei, taxes and duties for 4,529 thousand lei, and other operating expenses for 2,553 thousand lei.

The difference between the two totals gives the gross result: a profit of 376 thousand lei. Current corporate income tax is left blank, so net profit also stays at 376 thousand lei. Out of it, 19 thousand lei are withheld as legal reserves, 357 thousand lei remain, of which 179 thousand lei go as payments to the state budget and 178 thousand lei into other reserves, as the undertaking’s own source of financing.

The investment chapter is the largest in the whole table after staff costs: 109,215 thousand lei of investment expenditure, covered from sources of 110,684 thousand lei. The line for budget allocations for investment is blank, so investment money does not arrive through that channel. Revenue from European funds, on the other hand, is entered at 112,791 thousand lei, while eligible expenditure from European funds is entered at only 7,516 thousand lei, broken down into 6,374 thousand lei of salaries, 957 thousand lei of other expenses, 174 thousand lei of services, 10 thousand lei of materials and 1,000 lei for advertising.

Among the underlying data, the undertaking forecasts 712 employees at the end of the year and an average headcount of 687 staff, with average monthly earnings of 10,328 lei per employee. Labour productivity is entered at 206 thousand lei per person, total expenses per 1,000 lei of revenue at 997 lei, overdue payments at 8,000 thousand lei, while overdue receivables are left blank.

What has changed compared with the previous situation

The substantive change is that, from 12 October 2026, RATEN has an approved budget for 2026. Until then it had none. For 284 days of the financial year, that is from 1 January to 11 October 2026, the undertaking operated without the ceilings the decision now sets. The document does not say under what regime it spent during that interval and contains no provision confirming or retroactively correcting what was paid out before publication.

The delay can be measured. The legal basis invoked in the preamble, art. 4 para. (1) letter a) of Government Ordinance no. 26/2013, is the article establishing that the budgets of state-owned autonomous undertakings placed under the authority of a ministry are approved by Government decision, on the initiative of the principal authorising officer. The same ordinance also fixes the calendar: approval is to take place within 150 days of the entry into force of the annual state budget law, while the economic operator has 45 days from the same date to submit its draft budget to the ministry under whose authority it sits. Law no. 43/2026 on the state budget for 2026 was published on 27 March 2026. The 150-day deadline therefore fell due in the second half of August 2026. The decision was adopted on 9 October and published on 12 October, that is roughly seven weeks after the deadline expired.

The second change, a quieter one, is that the undertaking now has a firm wage ceiling for the last months of the year. Wage-related expenses of 89,125 thousand lei and average monthly earnings of 10,328 lei become limits for a year already more than three quarters spent, which means any adjustment is possible only across 81 days.

What does not change is comparative transparency. Being an annex with a single column, the decision shows neither the 2025 outturn, nor how the headcount has moved, nor whether the 8 million lei of overdue payments are rising or falling. Anyone wanting to compare has to look up last year’s decision elsewhere.

Advantages and disadvantages

What it improves

  • The amounts become public chapter by chapter, including those that are not usually discussed: overdue payments, the cost of the management contract, average monthly earnings.
  • Budget support appears on one clear line, the 99,000 thousand lei of transfers, rather than scattered across several items that are hard to add up.
  • The budget closes on the plus side, even if only by 376 thousand lei, so the undertaking is not asking for money beyond the transfer already provided for.
  • The 109,215 thousand lei of investment call for no allocation at all from the state budget, that line being at zero.
  • Revenue from European funds is entered separately, at 112,791 thousand lei, so it is visible how much of the undertaking’s financing is not Romanian money.
  • The wage ceiling is explicit, with a headcount and average earnings, not a single global sum from which nothing can be inferred.

What remains a problem

  • The year’s budget is approved with only 81 days of that year still to run, roughly seven weeks past the 150-day deadline in Government Ordinance no. 26/2013, and the preamble does not explain the delay.
  • The 8,000 thousand lei of overdue payments appear as a bare indicator, with no ageing, no creditors and no settlement deadline.
  • Seven lines in the table are left blank, among them subsidies, corporate income tax, overdue receivables and budget allocations for investment, with no note saying whether this means zero or data unavailable.
  • The asterisk on the rows carrying average monthly earnings points to a note that is published nowhere in the three pages of the act.
  • The annex has a single column, „Propuneri 2026”, so it allows no comparison with the previous year from inside the act.
  • The 99,000 thousand lei received from the budget exceed the undertaking’s entire staff cost, 97,247 thousand lei, by 1,753 thousand lei, and the act does not show what they are spent on.
  • The underlying data on which the table was built are not published, even though the whole table rests on them.

Practical advice

  1. Read row 58, overdue payments, before row 20, the gross result. A profit of 376 thousand lei sitting next to 8,000 thousand lei of invoices unpaid when due says something different from the profit read on its own.
  2. Put row 4, transfers, next to row 10, staff costs. If the transfer covers wages in full, as it does here, then public money is first of all keeping the people, and only then the activity.
  3. Subtract the transfer from revenue before reading the productivity figure in row 54. Those 206 thousand lei per employee include the money received from the budget, so they do not measure what the undertaking produces on the market.
  4. Check row 57, total expenses per 1,000 lei of revenue. A value of 997 means a margin of 3 lei per thousand, that is a budget built practically on the waterline.
  5. If you want to know what the money goes on, ask the Ministry of Energy for the underlying data through a public-interest information request. The published annex invokes them but does not contain them.
  6. Keep in mind that the table is headed „Propuneri 2026”, so it holds spending intentions. The year’s real figures only show up in the reports filed at the close of the financial year, and a budget approved in October can still be amended up to 31 December 2026.

Frequently asked questions

What does RATEN actually do?
It is the state-owned autonomous undertaking that carries the research side of the Romanian nuclear programme, from fuel and materials through to nuclear safety, with the Institute for Nuclear Research at Mioveni and the TRIGA research reactor. It does not sell electricity into the grid, so it never appears in anyone’s bill, but it is the structure through which the state keeps technical expertise on nuclear matters inside the country. The decision approves its budget, it does not change its remit.
Where do the 99 million lei come from and what do they cover?
They come from the state budget, on the transfers line, and account for 69.8% of approved total revenue. The decision does not break them down by purpose. It can be observed, however, that the sum is 1,753 thousand lei larger than the undertaking’s entire staff cost for 2026, which is 97,247 thousand lei.
Does the undertaking end up in profit or at a loss?
In profit, but minimally: a gross result of 376 thousand lei on revenue of 141,771 thousand lei, that is 0.27%. Current corporate income tax is left blank, so net profit is identical to the gross figure. Out of that profit, the state budget receives 179 thousand lei back in payments, roughly 1 leu for every 553 lei transferred.
What are the 8 million lei of overdue payments?
They are obligations the undertaking failed to settle when due: invoices to suppliers, amounts owed to the budget or other debts that have fallen due. Against annual expenses of 141,395 thousand lei, the 8,000 thousand lei amount to 5.7% of the budget, or 11,645 lei of arrears for each of the 687 average staff. The decision records them as an indicator, without providing for any settlement plan.
How much does an employee of the undertaking earn?
The act enters average monthly earnings of 10,328 lei per employee, calculated on the basis of wage-related expenses. The total cost of an employee to the undertaking is higher, though: 97,247 thousand lei divided by 687 average staff gives 141.6 thousand lei a year, that is 11,796 lei a month, because employer contributions and the other staff costs are added on top.
Why is the budget for a year that ends in December approved in October?
The decision does not explain. Government Ordinance no. 26/2013 requires approval within 150 days of the entry into force of the annual state budget law, and Law no. 43/2026 was published on 27 March 2026, so the deadline fell due in the second half of August. Publication on 12 October 2026 leaves 81 days of the financial year, after 77.8% of it had already gone by.
What do the 112.8 million lei of revenue from European funds mean?
It is an informative line in the table, row 39, with 112,791 thousand lei. In parallel, eligible expenditure from European funds is entered at 7,516 thousand lei, that is 6.7% of the figure in row 39, while investment expenditure comes to 109,215 thousand lei. The act does not show how these three rows connect with one another, nor how they relate to total revenue of 141,771 thousand lei.

Errors and inconsistencies in the published text

  • Annex, rows 52 and 53, average monthly earnings per employee, set against rows 11 and 51. Row 52 gives average monthly earnings of 10,328 lei per employee and states in the name of the indicator that it is „determinat pe baza cheltuielilor de natură salarială”, that is, determined on the basis of wage-related expenses. Wage-related expenses sit in row 11, at 89,125 thousand lei, and the average headcount in row 51, at 687 people. Dividing those 89,125,000 lei by 687 employees and by 12 months gives 10,811 lei a month, 483 lei above the published value. To arrive at the published value one would need a base of 85,144 thousand lei, which corresponds to no item in the table, or an average headcount of 719 employees, which appears nowhere in the act. The names of both rows carry an asterisk, a pointer to an explanatory note, and that note is not published in any of the three pages of the act, as verified in the official edition. The upshot is that the approved wage ceiling cannot be reconstructed from the other figures in the same annex, even though it is the indicator the undertaking is bound to observe.

Editorial analysis

The figure that says the most about this undertaking is not in the table; it emerges from two rows placed side by side. Labour productivity is officially entered at 206 thousand lei per employee, obtained from operating revenue of 141,354 thousand lei divided by 687 average staff. Except that 99,000 thousand lei of that revenue is a transfer from the state budget. Take the transfer out and productivity from own activity drops to 61.7 thousand lei per employee, 3.3 times less. Put differently, of the 206 thousand lei each employee appears to generate, 144 come from the taxpayer and 62 from work sold outside the state. The official indicator is correctly calculated under the formula in the annex, but it measures something other than its name suggests.

The second overlap is just as plain. The transfer from the budget, 99,000 thousand lei, covers the undertaking’s entire staff cost, 97,247 thousand lei, with 1,753 thousand lei left over. Formally the two lines have nothing to do with each other and public money is not earmarked for wages. In practice, if the transfer were to vanish, the undertaking could not pay its people out of its own revenue: the 42,354 thousand lei from own activity amount to 43.6% of the payroll. And at the end of the chain, the state receives 179 thousand lei back as payments out of profit, that is 1 leu for every 553 lei transferred. The observation is not an attack on nuclear research, which is not financed out of sales. It concerns the way it is presented: a table built for a commercial operator, applied to an activity that cannot possibly be commercial.

The third element is the calendar, and here the asymmetry is verifiable. Government Ordinance no. 26/2013, invoked in the preamble itself, gives the undertaking 45 days from the entry into force of the budget law to submit its draft budget, and the Government 150 days to approve it. Law no. 43/2026 on the state budget for 2026 was published on 27 March 2026, so the undertaking had to hand in its draft by the second half of May, and the decision had to be adopted by the end of August. It was adopted on 9 October, roughly 196 days after the budget law was published, and appeared in the Official Gazette of Romania on 12 October. The shorter deadline, the one binding on the addressee of the rule, is the one that can be sanctioned. The longer one, the administration’s, was overshot by roughly seven weeks, without a line of explanation in the preamble.

For the rest, the act is technically clean. Every subtotal closes: total revenue equals the sum of operating and financial revenue, total expenses the sum of operating and financial expenses, staff costs the sum of their five components, the gross result the difference between revenue and expenses, and the distribution of profit the legal reserve plus the payments plus the remaining sum. Total expenses per 1,000 lei of revenue, 997, check out to the rounding, as does productivity of 206. The problem is not the arithmetic but what is missing around it: seven blank lines with no note distinguishing zero from unknown, the note the asterisk on average earnings points to and which is not published, and a single column that makes any comparison with the previous year impossible from inside the act. For a budget carrying 8,000 thousand lei of overdue payments, 21 times the profit for the year, the absence of a comparison column weighs more than a formal defect.

What should be changed

  1. Alongside the „Propuneri 2026” column, the annex should carry one with the previous year’s outturn and one with the estimates for the years ahead. The reader would then see whether overdue payments and the headcount are rising or falling, without hunting down last year’s decision.
  2. The note to which the asterisks on rows 52 and 53 refer should be published together with the annex. The approved wage ceiling would become reconstructible from the other figures in the table, and the discrepancy of 483 lei a month would disappear.
  3. Lines without a value should have a zero written in, and where no data exist, a note saying so. That way nobody has to guess whether subsidies are zero or merely unfilled, and whether corporate income tax is missing from the calculation or from the form.
  4. Overdue payments should come with their ageing and with a settlement deadline the undertaking takes on. The practical effect: the 8,000 thousand lei become a traceable obligation rather than a piece of statistics that nobody owes to anybody.
  5. The transfer from the budget should be broken down by purpose, at least between staff costs, running costs and research programmes. It would then be possible to check whether public money finances research or merely the upkeep of the structure.
  6. When the 150-day deadline is overshot, the preamble of the decision should state the reason. The delay would become an owned decision, with someone answerable for it, and the reader would no longer have to infer it from the publication date.

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. 853 of 12 October 2026, pages 9-11 16 pages PDF, 157 KB the act starts on page 9

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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.