In brief
- The council that coordinates regional development in Arad, Timiș, Caraș-Severin and Hunedoara is replacing its 2005 rules of procedure with a new set.
- The rules say three times, in three different places, that projects and contracts financed from non-reimbursable external funds are not subject to the Council’s approval.
- If a meeting does not reach the quorum, the next one is held anyway, within 15 days, and the decisions it adopts are binding.
Published: Official Gazette of Romania (Monitorul Oficial) no. 714 of 27 August 2026
Adopted: 23 July 2026, at Văliug
The council that decides where the regional development money goes in the west of the country is rewriting its own rules after 21 years. The clearest of them says what no longer passes through it: projects on European funds. Decision no. 2 of 23 July 2026 of the Regional Development Council of the West Development Region, published in Official Gazette of Romania no. 714 of 27 August 2026, approves new rules on the organisation and functioning of the Council and repeals the text published in Official Gazette of Romania no. 107 of 2 February 2005. It comes at a time when the state is rearranging its responsibilities over European money, after the Government rewrote the table of coordinators under the National Recovery and Resilience Plan.
The Council is the regional deliberative body, without legal personality, made up of the presidents of the county councils of Arad, Timiș, Caraș-Severin and Hunedoara and of one representative of each category of local council, municipal, town and commune, from each county. Members carry out their duties free of charge.
What it changes in practice
The most visible change is where the Council’s competence now stops. Article 5(5) of the rules says that only the projects and contracts that need co-financing from the Regional Development Fund are submitted to the Council for an opinion and for approval, while those financed from non-reimbursable external funds are not submitted to it for an opinion or for approval. The same point comes back at Article 10 letter c), on projects, and at letter n), on contracts.
In practice, the Council keeps the decision over the money that comes from the counties’ contributions to the Regional Development Fund and steps out of the approval circuit for non-reimbursable external financing. The rules do not present the limit as a choice of their own: Article 5(5) derives it from Article 7(2) letters c), d) and m) of Law no. 315/2004. So it has a legal basis, but not a justification, and repeating the rule three times in a short text on internal organisation remains unusual.
The second substantive change concerns the quorum. Article 6 requires meetings to be held only in the presence of at least half plus one of the members and with all the counties represented. If those conditions are not met, the meeting is adjourned and another one is convened within 15 days. The meeting convened after an adjournment is held, however, even if it does not meet the conditions, and the decisions it adopts are binding.
The third is the written procedure. The Council may adopt decisions without meeting: the agreement is sent electronically to the secretariat, the decision is considered approved by a simple majority of the members within 5 working days of receipt of the proposal, and in the event of a tie the president’s agreement is decisive. Every decision adopted in this way must state in its text how it was adopted.
The rules also contain a set of transparency requirements: the convening is made in writing at least 7 calendar days in advance, and the proposed agenda and the accompanying material are published on the dedicated platform and on the website of the Regional Development Agency of the West Region at least 5 days before the meeting.
On conflicts of interest, at every meeting and in every written procedure the members, their alternates and the guests sign a declaration of confidentiality and impartiality. A member who represents an authority that has submitted a project for co-financing informs the Council and abstains from voting. When a list of projects is put to the vote, the vote is cast on each project separately.
What has changed compared with the previous situation
The text being replaced dates from February 2005, so the rules had been in force for more than 21 years. The act does not set out a list of amendments and does not explain what prompted the update; the preamble says only that the proposal on updating the rules was examined.
The second thing worth noting is the leadership. The president and the vice-president are elected from among the presidents of the county councils, by rotation, each for a one-year term, and they cannot come from the same county. Those in office continue until the rotation takes place, which avoids leaving the post vacant. If neither the president nor the vice-president can attend, the meeting is adjourned and the items on the agenda may be adopted by written procedure.
The third is the threshold for amendment. The rules are adopted and amended by a two-thirds vote of the number of members and only in the presence of at least one representative from each county. It is the only place where the qualified majority is calculated against the total number of members; the other two-thirds threshold in the rules, the one in Article 9(2), for adding items to the agenda, is calculated only among the members present.
The fourth is the calendar. The decision was adopted on 23 July 2026, at Văliug, and published on 27 August. Five weeks between the decision and its entry into the public domain.
Advantages and disadvantages
What it improves
- The transparency requirements are explicit: the agenda and the material are published on the agency’s website at least 5 days before the meeting.
- Conflicts of interest get a procedure, not just a prohibition: a declaration signed at every meeting, abstention from voting and a separate vote on each project on the list.
- The written procedure allows quick decisions between meetings, with an obligation to state in the decision how it was adopted.
- Amending the rules requires two thirds and the presence of all the counties, which protects the regional balance.
What remains a problem
- The meeting convened after an adjournment is held whatever the quorum, and the decisions it adopts are binding. The rule can be used as a way of getting past absences.
- The exclusion of projects on non-reimbursable external funds is presented as flowing from Law no. 315/2004, but the act does not say what in that law requires it, nor why it is restated three times.
- The rules do not require the decisions adopted to be published, only that they be communicated to members and institutions, within 15 working days. Publication is left to the Council’s discretion, through Article 13 letter b).
- There is no deadline for publishing the minutes of the meeting and no rule on public access to them.
Practical advice
- If you are preparing a project for one of the four counties in the region, check the source of financing first. Only projects with co-financing from the Regional Development Fund pass through the Council.
- The agenda and the material for the meetings are published on the website of the Regional Development Agency of the West Region at least 5 days in advance. It is the simplest way of finding out what is being decided.
- If you represent a local authority that has submitted a project, the member who represents you on the Council must abstain from voting. Check whether the abstention appears in the minutes.
- Bear in mind that some decisions are adopted by written procedure, without a meeting. Their text has to say so explicitly.
- For the county’s contribution to the Regional Development Fund, the county council has 60 days from the communication of the amount to adopt its own decision.
Frequently asked questions
What is the West Regional Development Council?
Do projects on European funds pass through the Council?
How are decisions taken?
What happens if the quorum is not reached?
Are the members paid?
From when does it apply?
Editorial analysis
Rules on the internal organisation of a regional council do not look, at first sight, like an act worth reading. They are, because they say who decides over which money. And the answer here is narrower than one might think: the Council approves the projects that need co-financing from the Regional Development Fund, fed by the contributions of the four county councils, and does not rule on those financed from non-reimbursable external funds.
The point does not appear once but three times: in the chapter on organisation, at Article 5, and twice in the list of tasks, on projects and on contracts. Repetition that insistent in a short text is not a matter of style. It closes a discussion, probably one that took place. What the act does not say is what the practice was before and what exactly has changed, because the 2005 rules are repealed, not compared.
The second point is the rule in Article 6(2). The quorum required is a serious one, half plus one and all four counties represented, exactly what is needed in a council where the regional balance matters. But if that quorum is not reached, the second meeting is held anyway and decides bindingly. The rule has a practical justification, since otherwise one county could block the work by staying away, but its effect is that a council made up of four counties can adopt decisions with the representatives of a single county in the room. A minimum threshold at the second convening would have solved both problems.
The third is what is missing. The rules set out in detail how a meeting is convened, what is published before it and how long the Council has to communicate its decisions to members and institutions. They do not, however, require the decisions adopted or the minutes to be published. The only opening is Article 13 letter b), which lets the secretariat publish on the website the material that the Council decides to publish, an option rather than a rule. Guaranteed transparency stops at the agenda. For a body that shares out public money between four counties, the asymmetry between what is announced in advance and what can be found out afterwards is hard to justify.
What should be changed
- A minimum quorum at the second convening. Even a low one, a threshold would prevent binding decisions being adopted with a single county present.
- Publication of the decisions and of the minutes. The rules require the agenda to be published before the meeting, but not the outcome of it.
- An explanation of the limit on competence. The reference to Law no. 315/2004 gives a legal basis, not a reason. A sentence saying why external funds sit outside the circuit would close the discussion.
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. 714 of 27 August 2026 16 pages PDF, 111 KB the act starts on page 13
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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.