In brief
- The Ministry of Economy, Digitalisation, Entrepreneurship and Tourism is left with 600 posts in its own apparatus, instead of 709. That means 109 posts cut, 15.37% of the establishment, not counting the dignitaries and their private offices. Ten posts stay reserved for external representation, as before.
- The organisation chart shrinks from thirteen structures to eight. All eight are general directorates, and seven of the old structures were plain directorates. A general directorate for asset management and development and one for financing and investment appear, while the economic directorate, the mineral resources one, the national defence industry one, the trade policy one and the one that coordinated the National Recovery and Resilience Plan disappear under their own names.
- The management of State shareholdings drops from the rank of directorate to the rank of service. In its place comes the Corporate Governance Service, directly under the minister, alongside a new service for economic resilience and critical infrastructure. Those concerned are the roughly 600 employees of the ministry, who learn of the reorganisation at least 30 days before it can be put into practice, plus the companies and institutions that dealt with the abolished directorates.
Published: Official Gazette of Romania, Part I, no. 819 of 25 September 2026, pages 10-11
In force from: from publication, 25 September 2026, because Article 12(3) of Law no. 24/2000 on legislative drafting rules says that normative acts, with the exception of laws and ordinances, take effect on the date of publication in the Official Gazette of Romania (Monitorul Oficial) unless they themselves lay down a later date, and this decision does not
The decision published on 25 September 2026 changes two things in the act that organises the Ministry of Economy, Digitalisation, Entrepreneurship and Tourism: the maximum number of posts and the organisation chart. The number falls from 709 to 600, and the chart goes from thirteen execution structures to eight. This is the second reorganisation of the kind in September 2026, after the one at the Ministry of Environment, where the establishment came down to 511 posts, twenty fewer. The difference in scale is large: there, 20 posts were cut, here 109.
The preamble says why. Four reasons are invoked: the obligation to reduce staff expenditure for 2026, laid down by Article XLIX of Government Emergency Ordinance no. 7/2026; the restoration, by the same ordinance, of the norms for setting up organisational structures; the need for administrative capacity for the State aid schemes and for the management of the State shareholdings under Government Emergency Ordinance no. 8/2026; and the need to close the milestones of the National Recovery and Resilience Plan. Article XLIX asks for a 10% cut in staff expenditure against 2025, calculated centrally. The cut in posts made by this decision is 15.37%, higher than the expenditure percentage the ordinance asks for, and the explanation lies in the vacant posts, which cost nothing and are the first to go.
The revived norms matter more than they look. Article 391(3) of Government Emergency Ordinance no. 57/2019, the Administrative Code, as worded by Government Emergency Ordinance no. 7/2026, requires a minimum of 7 execution posts for a service, a minimum of 15 for a directorate and a minimum of 25 for a general directorate. The new chart has eight general directorates, so a threshold of at least 200 execution posts for them alone, that is a third of the 600. The old chart had six general directorates and seven directorates, with a threshold of 255 posts.
The reorganisation does not apply at once. Article II(1) says that the reorganisation measures, observing the legal regime of each category of staff, cannot be ordered earlier than 30 days from entry into force, that is not before 25 October 2026. Paragraph (2) adds that, within 10 days of obtaining the opinion of the National Agency of Civil Servants, the minister approves by order the detailed structure, the staffing plan and the rules of organisation and operation. When exactly the opinion has to be asked for, the decision does not say.
What it changes in practice
The first effect is a staff ceiling. The 600 posts are the maximum financed from the State budget for the ministry’s own apparatus, without the dignitaries and without the posts in their private offices. Going above it takes a new Government decision, so the minister cannot rebuild the establishment by an order of his own. The 10 posts for external representation stay inside this ceiling, with the regime of staff sent on permanent mission abroad.
The second effect is on people. Going from thirteen structures to eight means abolishing management posts and moving duties to other directorates. The decision refers expressly to observing the legal regime applicable to each category of staff, that is to the notice and redeployment procedures in the Administrative Code for civil servants and in the Labour Code for contract staff.
The third effect is on duties. Trade policy and European affairs end up in the same general directorate, together with international relations. The defence industry, industrial policy, financing for industry, entrepreneurship and financing for small and medium-sized enterprises are gathered into a single general directorate for competitive economy, industries and entrepreneurship. Anyone with a file open at one of the abolished directorates will have to find out, after the implementing order, who is still handling it.
The fourth effect is one of administrative calendar. Until the minister’s order approving the detailed structure and the staffing plan, the ministry works on the new chart in the annex, but without the concrete allocation of posts to structures. This period has no maximum length written into the act, because the 10-day time limit runs from obtaining the opinion of the National Agency of Civil Servants, and there is no time limit at all for asking for that opinion.
The fifth effect is budgetary. The cut in posts serves the obligation to cut staff expenditure in 2026, calculated centrally for the principal authorising officer as a whole. The saving, however, appears only for the filled posts that are abolished, not for the vacant ones, and the decision does not say how many of the 109 posts cut were filled.
What has changed compared with the previous situation
The first change is the figure. Government Decision no. 189/2025, published on 3 March 2025, set 709 posts for the ministry’s own apparatus, also without dignitaries and private offices, and also with 10 posts for external representation. Now there are 600. The wording of Article 8(4) stays almost identical otherwise, with a single adjustment to a cross-reference: the long form, which cited the provisions of Article 2(1)(d) of Law no. 269/2003, becomes a short form that cites only Article 2(1)(d).
The second change is the rank of the structures. In the 2025 chart, the execution row held six general directorates and seven directorates. Now it holds eight general directorates and nothing else. In practice, seven plain directorates were abolished or raised in rank, and the minimum threshold for each box went up from 15 to 25 execution posts.
The third change is the list of names. All seven plain directorates go: economic; trade policy; European affairs and international relations; national defence industry; mineral resources; management of State shareholdings; industrial policy and financing for industry. Four of the six general directorates also go under their own names: entrepreneurship and financing for small and medium-sized enterprises; management and coordination of the National Recovery and Resilience Plan; electronic communications, policy and strategy in digitalisation; institutional management. The last two are not abolished, however, but renamed more briefly: communications and digitalisation, and management and institutional relations respectively. Four names appear with no counterpart: the general directorate for financing and investment; the general directorate for asset management and development; the general directorate for competitive economy, industries and entrepreneurship; the general directorate for trade, European affairs and international relations. Only two names pass through the reorganisation unchanged: the general directorate for legal affairs and the general directorate for tourism.
The fourth change concerns the structures under the minister. The service for special matters in the field of communications and classified information drops to the rank of compartment and loses the part about communications from its name. The public policy and managerial internal control unit merges with the endorsement service into a Public Policy and Endorsement Service. Two structures with no counterpart in the old chart appear: the Corporate Governance Service and the Economic Resilience and Critical Infrastructure Service. What disappears, in exchange, is the box of the external network at the European Union and at the World Trade Organisation, even though the 10 posts for external representation stay in the text.
Advantages and disadvantages
What it improves
- The cut is real and measurable: 109 posts fewer, 15.37% of the old establishment, written plainly in Article 8(4) and not hidden in an annex.
- The organisation chart becomes simpler. Eight execution structures instead of thirteen means fewer doors for the same file and, on paper, fewer management posts.
- The 30-day period before any reorganisation measure gives staff a notice interval written into the decision itself, not left entirely to the general rules.
- Economic resilience and critical infrastructure get a structure of their own, with an explicit name, which did not exist in the 2025 chart.
- All the execution structures are now of the same rank, so comparing them and allocating posts follow a single rule, the one of a minimum of 25 execution posts.
What remains a problem
- It is not known how many of the 109 posts cut were filled. Without that figure, neither the budget saving nor the number of people affected can be estimated.
- The time limit up to the implementing order has no end. The 10 days run from obtaining the opinion of the National Agency of Civil Servants, and the decision sets no time limit for asking for that opinion.
- The rank of the structure that manages the State shareholdings falls from directorate to service, that is from a minimum of 15 to a minimum of 7 execution posts, in the very decision whose preamble invokes the need to manage the State shareholdings arising from support measures granted as a capital contribution.
- The structure that coordinated the National Recovery and Resilience Plan disappears as a name from the chart, although the preamble invokes precisely the completion of the plan and the closing of its milestones.
- External representation keeps its 10 posts in the text, but the structure that housed them in the old chart, the external network at the European Union and at the World Trade Organisation, no longer appears. The act does not show where they sit.
- The organisation chart is reproduced in facsimile, as a drawing, and does not contain the number of posts per structure. How the 600 posts are shared out remains to be learned from the minister’s order, which is not published in the Official Gazette of Romania.
Practical advice
- If you work in the ministry, keep the date of 25 October 2026 in mind. Before the 30 days from publication are up, no reorganisation measure can be ordered, whatever an internal announcement may say.
- If you have a file open at one of the abolished directorates, follow the minister’s order approving the detailed structure. Only there will it be visible which structure takes over the task, and the document has to be asked for from the ministry directly, through a request for information of public interest.
- Do not confuse the 600 posts with the number of employees. It is a maximum ceiling financed from the State budget, and the establishment may stay partly unfilled.
- If you follow the State shareholdings in companies, note that the counterpart changes. The dedicated directorate becomes the Corporate Governance Service, directly subordinated to the minister.
- When you compare with other ministries, compare the percentage, not the absolute number. At the Ministry of Environment 20 posts were cut from an establishment of 531, here 109 from one of 709.
- Check the rank of a structure before you send it a letter. A service has a minimum of 7 execution posts, a directorate a minimum of 15, a general directorate a minimum of 25, and the rank says something about the real capacity to handle files.
Frequently asked questions
How many posts does the Ministry of Economy lose?
How many directorates are left?
What new structures appear?
From when does the reorganisation apply?
Why are posts being cut now?
How many people lose their jobs?
What does a minimum of 25 posts for a general directorate mean?
Do the annexes on assets or on subordinate units change as well?
Errors and inconsistencies in the published text
- Article II(1) and (2). Paragraph (1) prohibits any reorganisation measure before the 30 days from entry into force are up. Paragraph (2) obliges the minister to approve the detailed structure, the staffing plan and the rules of organisation and operation within 10 days of obtaining the opinion of the National Agency of Civil Servants. If the opinion arrives earlier than the twentieth day from publication, the two time limits exclude each other: the order becomes compulsory before the date on which the reorganisation measures may be ordered. The decision does not say which of the two prevails and sets no time limit for asking for the opinion, so it cannot be known in advance whether the situation arises or not.
Editorial analysis
The decision has two lines of amendment and a drawn annex, but it says more than it looks. The first observation comes from putting the figure together with the norm that the preamble invokes on its own. Article 391(3) of the Administrative Code, brought back into force by Government Emergency Ordinance no. 7/2026, requires 25 execution posts for a general directorate and 15 for a directorate. The old chart had six general directorates and seven directorates, so a threshold of 255 execution posts on the bottom row. The new one has eight general directorates, so a threshold of 200. Cutting 109 posts did not allow thirteen boxes to be kept if all of them moved up to the rank of general directorate, because the threshold would have risen to 325 posts out of 600. The merger is not a management option, it is the arithmetical consequence of two decisions taken separately: cutting the establishment and restoring the norms.
The second observation is a contradiction between the preamble and the annex. The preamble invokes Government Emergency Ordinance no. 8/2026 and, expressly, the ministry’s obligation to manage the State shareholdings arising from support measures granted in the form of a capital contribution. In the old chart, this job belonged to a directorate, that is to a structure of at least 15 execution posts. In the new one, it goes to a service, with a threshold of 7. The same reasoning applies to the National Recovery and Resilience Plan: the preamble asks for administrative capacity to complete the implementation and to close the milestones, while the chart abolishes, as a name, the only structure that carried the name of the plan, a general directorate. The reasons and the drawing go in opposite directions, and the decision does not explain where the duties move.
The third observation concerns the proportions. The cut in posts, 15.37%, goes beyond the 10% that Article XLIX of Government Emergency Ordinance no. 7/2026 asks for on staff expenditure. The two are not directly comparable, though: the ordinance asks for a cut in the expenditure actually made, calculated centrally for the principal authorising officer as a whole, while the decision cuts posts, and some of them may be vacant. An abolished vacant post produces a smaller establishment with no saving at all. The number of filled posts that disappear is the only figure that would show how much is saved, and it is exactly the figure that is missing.
The fourth observation concerns time. The decision enters into force on 25 September 2026, but the reorganisation itself cannot begin before 25 October, and the order with the detailed structure comes within 10 days of an opinion for which there is no time limit to ask. The result is an interval with no written end, in which the ministry has a new organisation chart in the Official Gazette of Romania and an allocation of posts still valid from the old one. For an act aimed at cutting expenditure in the year 2026, this period matters: 98 days of the budget year are left from publication, and every day spent in transition is a day in which the saving is not made.
What should be changed
- The decision should say how many of the abolished posts are filled. A single figure in the text of Article II would turn the cut from an establishment number into an estimable saving and would show how many people actually enter the notice procedures.
- The time limit for asking for the opinion of the National Agency of Civil Servants should be written into the act. Without it, the 10 days in Article II(2) can start at any moment, and the transition period has no maximum length. A time limit of 15 days from publication would close the problem and would also remove the overlap with the 30-day period.
- The explanatory memorandum should show where the duties of the abolished directorates go. A two-column table, the old structure and the structure taking over, would answer the question that any company with a file in progress is asking, without waiting for the implementing order.
- The organisation chart should be published with the number of posts per structure. A drawing without figures does not allow anyone to check that the thresholds in Article 391(3) of the Administrative Code are met, and the staffing plan, where the figures do exist, is not published.
- Lowering the rank of a structure should be explained, when the preamble asks for that structure to be strengthened. The management of State shareholdings goes from directorate to service in the same act that invokes the need for capacity to manage those shareholdings, and one sentence of explanation would avoid the apparent contradiction.
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. 819 of 25 September 2026, pages 10-11 16 pages PDF, 143 KB the act starts on page 10
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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.