Asset declarations of public office holders become confidential, and a summary sheet is published instead

From 31 August 2026, the asset declaration of a public office holder can no longer be read by anyone outside the National Integrity Agency. Law no. 180/2026, published in Official Gazette of Romania no. 725 of 28 August 2026 and promulgated by Decree no. 733/2026, provides in the new wording of Article 2(3) of Law no. 176/2010 that „the obligation to file asset and interest declarations does not entail their publication”. What appears in their place is a summary sheet, generated automatically, which is not allowed to reproduce the declaration even in part. It is the largest change in the regime of public asset transparency since the Agency was set up, on a day when Parliament also closed the National Recovery and Resilience Plan by law.

The act has 13 articles and amends five laws at once: Law no. 144/2007, which organises the Agency, Law no. 176/2010, which sets out who declares and what happens to the declarations, Law no. 161/2003 on transparency, Law no. 184/2016, which set up the mechanism for preventing conflicts of interest in public procurement, and the Administrative Code.

Declarations are from now on filed exclusively in electronic form, through the Agency’s e-DAI platform, signed with a qualified electronic signature or with the advanced signature embedded in the electronic identity card. The only exception is candidates standing for election, who may also sign by hand.

The CCR has ruled on the leadership of public institutions in the case of Romanian Television and Romanian Radio too, where the procedure for appointing the boards was declared unconstitutional. Along the same line of narrowing access, the government has set out which Permanent Electoral Authority documents become strictly secret.

What it changes in practice

The same integrity area has a second piece, over at public tenders: the integrity form has left the statute book and now asks for more data than the law itself did.

The first effect is confidentiality. The asset and interest declarations of all 47 categories are kept in the Agency’s records „cu asigurarea confidențialității acestora, fără a fi făcute publice, pe o perioadă de 7 ani de la data transmiterii”, that is, in confidence, without being made public, for 7 years from the date they are filed. Until now they were displayed in full on the websites of the institutions and on the Agency’s own site.

The second effect is the public sheet on financial interests. The Agency generates it automatically, through e-DAI, on the very date the declarations are filed, following the model in the new annex no. 5 to Law no. 176/2010. The text says expressly that the sheet „cuprinde exclusiv informațiile prevăzute în anexa nr. 5 și nu poate reproduce, integral sau parțial, declarația de avere ori declarația de interese”, that it contains only the information set out in annex no. 5 and cannot reproduce the asset or interest declaration in whole or in part. It stays on the Agency’s website for 5 years, and for candidates it is published within 10 days of the declarations being received and stays up for one year. The law also lists what the sheet may not contain: anything that would allow assets to be located, the declarant’s signature, marital status, including divorce and the way property was divided, account numbers and IBAN codes, and the names of other people mentioned in the declarations.

The third effect is the gap between who declares and who is published. The obligation to file declarations covers 47 categories, from the President of Romania down to the treasurers of trade union and employers’ confederations, Romanian members of the European Parliament and the European Commissioner from Romania. The list in Article 2(7), of those whose sheet is published, has 42 entries and includes prefects, high-ranking civil servants and heads of public institutions. What it does not include are judges, prosecutors, assistant magistrates and judicial assistants, the auxiliary staff of the courts and prosecutor’s offices, the staff who administer or implement programmes financed from external or budget funds, co-opted experts paid from external funds, the diplomatic and consular corps, and civil servants in management and control posts across the central and local authorities.

The fourth effect is a verification procedure before publication. The person checks their own sheet, may report errors to the Agency within 30 days of filing the declarations, and the Agency is required to correct it. Publication follows the expiry of those 30 days and, in any event, no later than 60 days after filing.

The fifth effect strikes straight at careers. People in respect of whom a state of incompatibility or a conflict of interests was finally established before the law entered into force, and for whom the 3-year ban has not run its course, lose their office, public dignity or mandate by operation of law 30 days after entry into force, that is, on 30 September 2026. For those in respect of whom the finding is made after entry into force, the office ends on the very date the assessment report or the court judgment becomes final. And those who become incompatible as a result of this law have 45 days to give up one of the offices, that is, until 15 October 2026.

The sixth effect concerns public procurement. The integrity form becomes part of the tender documentation and is completed in SEAP, from publication of the documentation until the contract award notice. If the form is missing or has been filled in improperly, the Agency uses the Prevention System to look for conflicts of interest anyway, which was not provided for before.

The initiative of the Agency itself also has constitutional backing, and the Court confirmed that a check can start of its own motion, without any outside referral.

The seventh effect concerns the Agency itself. A post of secretary general is created, a high-ranking civil servant who may act as principal authorising officer for no more than 60 days, only if both the president and the vice-president are absent, and only for day-to-day administration: he or she is expressly forbidden to change the organisational structure, to appoint or dismiss integrity inspectors, to allocate case files outside the random allocation system, to issue instructions on specific assessments or to waive actions brought by the Agency. The National Integrity Council and the Senate are informed within 24 hours.

What has changed compared with the previous situation

The substantive change is that the rule has been reversed. Until now, an asset declaration was a public document by its very nature, and filing it meant publishing it. From 31 August 2026, filing and publicity part company: you declare to the Agency, and the public receives a sheet of financial interests, not the document.

Who enters the system has changed as well. The list of those obliged to declare grows to 47 categories and now includes, among others, candidates standing for election, the presidents and treasurers of trade union and employers’ federations and confederations, the leadership of the national sports federations, of the Olympic Committee and of the National Paralympic Committee, Romanian members of the European Parliament and the European Commissioner from Romania.

The way declarations are filed has changed. A qualified electronic signature, or the advanced signature embedded in the electronic identity card, becomes mandatory, and the e-DAI platform the only channel. Only candidates standing for election may still sign by hand.

The professional status of integrity inspectors has changed too: the work of those with a law degree now counts as seniority in the legal profession, treated in the same way as the legal work of an in-house counsel. And for 6 months after entry into force, if vacant posts are not filled by competition or competitions are suspended, inspectors may be appointed by transfer.

In procurement, the prevention mechanism gains a second leg. Before, the ex ante check depended on the integrity form completed by the contracting authority. Now, a missing or improperly completed form no longer stops the check: the Agency goes in with the Prevention System regardless.

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