In brief
- After three years and four months, Parliament approves the emergency ordinance that brought hydrogen refuelling stations under ISCIR supervision and set rules for the filling of pressure vessels.
- The law changes nothing in the text of the ordinance. Approval takes it out of its provisional status and closes off the risk that Parliament might reject it or amend it retroactively.
- Without these rules, no hydrogen refuelling installation could be lawfully authorised, and the National Hydrogen Strategy, committed to under the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR), was left without a technical basis.
Published: Official Gazette of Romania (Monitorul Oficial) no. 574 of 13 July 2026
In force from: 16 July 2026
Putting hydrogen into a tank at 700 bar takes an authorisation, and the authorisation needs a technical prescription behind it. Until March 2023 that prescription did not exist, and the filling of vessels was not even defined in the law. Law no. 128/2026, published in Official Gazette of Romania no. 574 of 13 July 2026, approves the emergency ordinance that solved the problem back then. It is one of seven laws approving old ordinances published on the same day, alongside the one by which Parliament unblocked teaching posts in schools.
Government Emergency Ordinance no. 11/2023 was published in Official Gazette of Romania no. 218 of 16 March 2023 and amended Law no. 64/2008 on the safe operation of pressure equipment, lifting equipment and fuel-burning appliances.
The present law has a single article, by which the ordinance is approved, with no amendment and no addition. The text remains exactly the one from 2023.
What it changes in practice
The ordinance leaves its provisional status behind. An emergency ordinance produces effects from publication, but until it is approved by law it remains in the hands of Parliament, which can reject or amend it. Approval closes that window.
Hydrogen refuelling installations stay on the ISCIR list for good. The ordinance added a new item to annex no. 2 to Law no. 64/2008: „Hydrogen refuelling installations”. From that moment they fall into the category of equipment subject to authorisation and technical verification.
Filling becomes a defined activity. A definition of filling was written into the law: the repetitive activity of charging transportable vessels with compressed, liquefied or dissolved gases under pressure, in accordance with the technical prescriptions.
Whoever carries out filling has to be authorised. The ordinance added filling to the list in Article 8(1), the list of activities that may be performed only by authorised natural or legal persons, alongside building, mounting, installing, commissioning, overhauls, repairs, welding and the rest.
Technical prescriptions may set safety distances. The definition of the technical prescription was completed so as to include expressly conditions and requirements on the protection and safety distances of installations, where these are not set by other authorities.
The threshold for boilers has changed. In annex no. 4, item 1 was rewritten: steam and hot water boilers with pressure multiplied by volume of at most 60 bar x litre and pressure higher than 4 bar.
What has changed compared with the previous situation
The comparison with the 2023 edition shows why the Government considered the situation extraordinary. The preamble to the ordinance says plainly that the supply of hydrogen to consumers was not regulated, and that this had to be settled before the National Hydrogen Strategy was drawn up, a strategy committed to under the National Recovery and Resilience Plan, component 6, reform 4.
The second reason invoked was technical. Hydrogen is carried from production installations to refuelling installations in transportable pressure vessels, at 350 or 700 bar or above, made among other things of composite materials, and the filling of those vessels was not regulated. The technical prescription in force had been approved in 2003 and was, the preamble says, out of date on this point.
The law now adopted changes none of this. The difference is one of legal status: until 16 July 2026 the text applied by virtue of an emergency ordinance; from that date it applies by virtue of an ordinance approved by law.
The interval is worth keeping in mind as well. The ordinance was published on 16 March 2023 and the approving law on 13 July 2026: three years and almost four months in which the authorisation regime for hydrogen stations ran under an act that Parliament could still reject.
Advantages and disadvantages
What it improves
- It closes off a legal uncertainty for investors who have had hydrogen refuelling installations authorised in the meantime.
- It confirms that the filling of pressure vessels remains reserved to authorised persons, which counts directly for safety.
- Approval without amendments leaves untouched the authorisations and technical prescriptions issued on the basis of the 2023 ordinance.
- It keeps in place the legal basis on which the National Hydrogen Strategy, committed to under the PNRR, rests.
- It confirms that ISCIR is competent to set the protection and safety distances by technical prescription, where no other authority fixes them.
What remains a problem
- Three years and four months from the publication of the ordinance to its approval is hard to justify for a text one page long.
- The law does not take the opportunity to update the 2003 technical prescription, which the preamble to the ordinance itself describes as out of date.
- The ordinance left the drafting of the actual rules to ISCIR and to ministerial orders, and the approving law sets no deadline for them.
- The text says nothing about refuelling stations open to the general public, although that is where the question of safety distances arises most sharply.
- For the ordinary reader, a law that merely approves an ordinance from three years ago gives no indication at all of what changed back then.
Practical advice
- If you operate a hydrogen refuelling installation, check that it appears in the ISCIR records. It has been listed in annex no. 2 to Law no. 64/2008 since March 2023, so it falls under the authorisation and technical verification regime.
- If your activity includes the filling of transportable vessels with compressed, liquefied or dissolved gases under pressure, you need an authorisation. Filling is on the list in Article 8(1).
- Do not rely on an authorisation obtained before March 2023 for activities that were not defined as such at the time. Ask for written confirmation that it also covers filling.
- Protection and safety distances may be set by technical prescription, so check the prescription applicable to your installation, not just the law.
- If you operate steam or hot water boilers, reread item 1 of annex no. 4: the threshold is pressure multiplied by volume of at most 60 bar x litre and pressure higher than 4 bar.
- ISCIR technical prescriptions are approved by order of the minister of the economy and published in the Official Gazette of Romania. That is where the version in force is to be found, not on secondary websites.
Frequently asked questions
What does this law actually do?
Does anything change for operators from 16 July 2026?
What did the 2023 ordinance bring?
Why was an emergency ordinance needed?
Who authorises the activities?
What happens to the authorisations issued between 2023 and 2026?
Editorial analysis
The ordinance approved here is exactly the kind of technical text that never reaches public debate and without which, even so, a whole chapter of investment cannot start. Without a definition of filling and without hydrogen installations on the ISCIR list, no station could be lawfully authorised, and the reform committed to under the PNRR remained an intention. The Government was right to act quickly.
The problem lies in the other half of the process. Three years and four months to approve a text of five points, which was not even amended, shows that the procedure for approving ordinances runs on a different clock from the reality it regulates. Throughout that period, any investor putting up a hydrogen station did so on a basis that Parliament could, in theory, sweep away.
Something else is visible here. The preamble to the ordinance states, in black and white, that the applicable technical prescription dates from 2003 and is out of date. Three years later, the approving law says nothing about this and sets no deadline for replacing it. The diagnosis stayed in the preamble, and the treatment was left to a ministerial order.
What should be changed
- A constitutional or statutory deadline for approving emergency ordinances. Any deadline, even a year, would be better than the present absence, which leaves acts with immediate effects hanging for years on end.
- A deadline for replacing the 2003 technical prescription. If the text declaring it out of date is three years old and it still applies, then precisely the link that turns the law into usable rules is missing.
- Explicit rules for hydrogen stations open to the public. Protection distances left to the technical prescription should be backed by minimum requirements in the law, as with other high-risk installations.
- An explanatory note when approving laws are published. A paragraph saying what the approved ordinance changed would make these texts something readable, rather than a bare reference to an act from three years ago.
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. 574 of 13 July 2026 16 pages PDF, 101 KB the act starts on page 2
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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.