In brief

  • Three budgets for 2026, 111.2 million lei, approved with 72 days left in the year. On 21 October 2026, the Official Gazette of Romania (Monitorul Oficial), Part I, published the budgets of the Civil Aviation Safety Investigation and Analysis Authority (24.6 million lei), of the Romanian Centre for the Training and Professional Development of Naval Transport Personnel (78.4 million lei in budget appropriations) and of Medserv Min (8.2 million lei in total expenditure). From 21 October to 31 December 2026 there are 72 calendar days left, 49 of them working days once Saturdays, Sundays and the public holidays of 30 November, 1 December and 25 December are taken out.
  • A third of the money is capital expenditure: 36.6 million lei. The aeronautical authority has 11,035,000 lei in non-financial assets, of which 9,999,000 lei for construction alone, that is 40.6% of its entire budget. The naval centre has 25,289,000 lei, of which 20,770,000 lei for machinery, equipment and means of transport. Measured against the 49 working days that are left, the required pace is 747,000 lei of capital spending per working day and 2.27 million lei per working day across all three budgets.
  • The annexes have a single column, so the change itself is invisible. Two of the three orders approve „amended” budgets, but the published annexes contain only the „Program 2026″ column, with no previously approved figure and no difference. A reader cannot establish from the published text whether the amount has gone up or down. A further 23,865,000 lei of the money held by the two transport entities, that is 23.2%, comes from the surplus of previous years, money that was not spent when it should have been.
Act: Order of the interim minister of transport and infrastructure no. 1.024/2026 on the approval of the amended revenue and expenditure budget for 2026 of the Civil Aviation Safety Investigation and Analysis Authority (AIAS); Order of the interim minister of transport and infrastructure no. 1.025/2026 on the approval of the amended revenue and expenditure budget for 2026 of the Romanian Centre for the Training and Professional Development of Naval Transport Personnel — CERONAV; Order of the interim minister of energy, of the Minister of Finance and of the interim minister of labour, family, youth and social solidarity no. 1.101/1.401/1.395/2026 for the approval of the revenue and expenditure budget for 2026 for Medserv Min — S.A.
Published: Official Gazette of Romania, Part I, no. 881 of 21 October 2026, pages 7-9, and no. 882 of 21 October 2026, pages 2-5 and 6-10
Who is affected: the 296 employees of the three entities, the seafarers and shipping companies that pay for qualification courses, air passengers and civil aviation operators, mining employees who receive medical services in Târgu Jiu, the suppliers of works and equipment for the three budgets, the taxpayer
Takes effect: 21 October 2026, the date of publication, because none of the three orders sets a different date of entry into force

Three orders published on the same day state how much, until 31 December 2026, may be spent by an authority that investigates civil aviation accidents, by a centre that trains Romanian seafarers and by a company that provides medical services for the mining industry. Taken on the year’s budget appropriations, their total is 111,165,000 lei. The approval came on 21 October 2026, when 72 days of the budget year were left.

The first two orders, nos. 1.024/2026 and 1.025/2026, bear the signature date of 20 October 2026 and approve „amended” budgets, that is revisions of budgets already approved during the year. The third, no. 1.101/1.401/1.395/2026, is not a revision: it approves the 2026 budget of Medserv Min for the first time, even though the minister of energy had signed it on 22 September 2026, the minister of labour on 29 September 2026 and the Minister of Finance on 15 October 2026. By the date on which it takes effect, 293 days of the year it budgets for had already gone by.

The three annexes are reproduced in facsimile and give the figures in thousands of lei, by chapter and expenditure title. The Civil Aviation Safety Investigation and Analysis Authority, which we will call the aeronautical authority from here on, has total own revenue of 24,600,000 lei: 15,500,000 lei of current revenue and 9,100,000 lei drawn from the previous year’s surplus. Its total expenditure is also 24,600,000 lei, both in commitment appropriations and in budget appropriations, so the budget closes at the same figure on both sides.

CERONAV, the centre that trains naval transport staff, has revenue of 78,389,000 lei, of which 50,251,000 lei, that is 64.1% of the total, comes from running qualification and retraining courses. The state contributes a subsidy of 2,600,000 lei, 3.3% of revenue, while European funds bring in 10,555,000 lei. The remainder, 14,765,000 lei, is drawn from the previous year’s surplus. This is where the only structural difference between the two transport budgets appears: total expenditure is 84,723,000 lei in commitment appropriations and 78,389,000 lei in budget appropriations, 6,334,000 lei apart.

Medserv Min, with its registered office in Târgu Jiu, at Calea Severinului no. 38A, has total revenue of 8,326,000 lei and total expenditure of 8,176,000 lei, so it budgets for a positive gross result of 150,000 lei and a net profit of 127,000 lei. Staff costs of 7,086,000 lei account for 86.7% of everything the company spends, which fits the nature of the activity: medical services provided by people, not manufacturing.

What it changes in practice

All three orders take effect from 21 October 2026. None of them contains an article setting a different date, and normative acts of central public administration bodies that do not set a date themselves enter into force on the date of publication.

The practical effect is a ceiling. Article 2(1) of the orders for the aeronautical authority and for CERONAV states that total expenditure corresponding to the revenue entered in the budget constitutes maximum limits and may not be exceeded other than in justified cases and only with the approval of the minister of transport and infrastructure. Paragraph (2) adds a valve working the other way: if the revenue does not materialise, the institution may spend in proportion to the degree to which revenue is collected. In other words, the figures in the annex mark a ceiling that falls if receipts fall.

The quarterly breakdown of the indicators is not set by the order. Article 1(2) leaves it to the governing board of each institution, which means that the pace at which the remaining 72 days are spent is decided internally, without publication.

For suppliers, the effect is read off the capital items. The aeronautical authority has a 2026 budget appropriation of 9,999,000 lei for construction, 871,000 lei for machinery, equipment and means of transport and 165,000 lei for other fixed assets. CERONAV has 20,770,000 lei for machinery, equipment and means of transport, 1,666,000 lei for construction, 1,419,000 lei for furniture and office equipment, 834,000 lei for other fixed assets and 600,000 lei for capital repairs. Medserv Min has 285,000 lei of investment expenditure, against 570,000 lei of sources of investment financing, of which zero in budget allocations.

For seafarers and for the companies that send them on courses, the effect is indirect but measurable: of CERONAV’s 78,389,000 lei, 50,251,000 lei is money they pay in course fees. The fees themselves are not in the order, so the budget says how much is collected, not how much a course costs.

For employees, the budgets set the salary fund. The aeronautical authority has 3,580,000 lei of staff costs for an average headcount of 30 and average gross monthly earnings of 8,786 lei per employee. CERONAV has 22,042,000 lei for 175 people and average gross monthly earnings of 9,838 lei. Medserv Min has 7,086,000 lei of staff costs for 91 employees, with average monthly earnings of 5,676 lei calculated on salary-type expenditure. The bases of calculation are not identical, so the differences should be read with care: in the first two, the amount intended for the head of the entity is taken out of the average, while in the third the indicator is measured against all salary-type expenditure.

What has changed compared with the previous situation

At the aeronautical authority and at CERONAV, what has changed is a budget that already existed. The orders speak of „amended” budgets and are based on Article 16(1)(e) of Law no. 500/2002 on public finance. The proposal came through the Economic Directorate’s internal report no. 3.426 of 6 October 2026 for CERONAV and no. 3.556 of 14 October 2026 for the aeronautical authority.

How much was amended cannot be established from the published acts. The annexes have a single column of figures, headed „Program 2026″. There is no column for the programme approved earlier, no difference column, and the orders give neither the number and date of the act they amend nor the issue of the Official Gazette of Romania in which the previous version appeared. An amended budget published in this form shows where things end up, not where they started.

There is, even so, an indirect sign about previous years. The aeronautical authority covers 9,100,000 lei of its 24,600,000 lei budget, that is 37.0%, from the previous year’s surplus. At CERONAV, 14,765,000 lei out of 78,389,000, that is 18.8%, comes from the same source. Together, 23,865,000 lei, almost a quarter of the money held by the two entities, is money the institutions had and did not use in previous years.

CERONAV also shows a structural feature that the aeronautical authority does not have: two different totals for the same year. Commitment appropriations stand at 84,723,000 lei, budget appropriations at 78,389,000 lei, and the whole 6,334,000 lei difference sits in a single item, 56.48, the programmes financed from the European Regional Development Fund for the 2021-2027 financial framework, where the commitment is 19,924,000 lei and the budget appropriation 13,590,000 lei. At the aeronautical authority both values are 24,600,000 lei, so the question does not arise.

The Medserv Min budget amends nothing, because it is the basic budget for the year. The order is based on Article 4(1)(b) of Government Ordinance no. 26/2013 on strengthening financial discipline at certain economic operators in which the state holds a direct or indirect majority stake. The company has the unique registration code 14814475 and the trade register number J2002000299187. Its budget appears in the Official Gazette of Romania with 293 days of the budget year already spent.

Advantages and disadvantages

What it improves

  • The annexes are published in full, by chapter, title, article and paragraph, so anyone can redo the calculations without asking the institution for documents.
  • The three annexes add up. At the aeronautical authority, 13,565,000 lei of current expenditure plus 11,035,000 lei of capital expenditure gives exactly 24,600,000 lei. At CERONAV, 53,100,000 plus 25,289,000 gives 78,389,000 lei in budget appropriations, while 59,434,000 plus 25,289,000 gives 84,723,000 lei in commitments. At Medserv Min, row 6 equals the sum of rows 8, 9, 10 and 18.
  • The data underlying staff costs are published, with the average headcount, the average gross monthly earnings and the amounts taken out of the average, which makes the salary fund verifiable.
  • The aeronautical authority and CERONAV finance themselves from own revenue. A subsidy from the state budget appears only at CERONAV, 2,600,000 lei, and it is tied to the projects financed from European funds.
  • CERONAV brings in 10,555,000 lei from non-reimbursable external funds, of which 9,278,000 lei from the European Regional Development Fund.
  • Medserv Min budgets for a profit, not a loss: 150,000 lei gross result, 127,000 lei net profit, 7,000 lei of legal reserves, and the row for overdue payments is zero.
  • Article 2(2) of the transport orders ties spending to collection, so a revenue shortfall does not automatically turn into a debt of the institution.

What remains a problem

  • An „amended” budget published with a single column does not show the amendment. The earlier figure, the difference and the reference to the act amended are all missing.
  • The calendar. For 36.6 million lei of capital expenditure there are 72 calendar days and 49 working days left, and at the aeronautical authority the largest item, construction worth 9,999,000 lei, is also the hardest to execute in that span.
  • CERONAV has two figures for total 2026 expenditure, and Article 2(1) does not say which of them it caps.
  • 23.2% of the money held by the two transport entities is surplus from previous years, a sign that the same late approval happened before.
  • At the aeronautical authority, 15,500,000 lei, that is 63.0% of revenue, sits in a single item called „Alte venituri”, other revenue, under code 36.10.50, with no breakdown at all. For a body that investigates aviation safety, the majority source of its money goes unnamed.
  • At Medserv Min, the profit distribution gives 60,000 lei in dividends, all of it on row 37, „dividende cuvenite altor acționari”, dividends due to other shareholders. Row 35, „dividende cuvenite bugetului de stat”, dividends due to the state budget, is zero, even though the order is issued by three ministries on the basis of financial discipline at operators in which the state holds a majority stake.
  • Investment at Medserv Min, 285,000 lei, accounts for 3.5% of expenditure, half of the 570,000 lei of declared sources of investment financing.
  • The quarterly breakdown, the only document that would show what can realistically still be executed by 31 December 2026, stays with the governing board and is not published.

Practical advice

  1. If you sell works, equipment or services to one of the three entities, look at the budget appropriation for the item, not at the commitment appropriation. A commitment can be signed now and paid in later years; the budget appropriation is the money that can be paid out in 2026.
  2. For a payment expected by 31 December 2026, ask in writing for confirmation that the amount has a budget appropriation for the current year on that item. At CERONAV, the gap between the two ceilings is 6,334,000 lei and it sits entirely in the line for projects financed from European funds.
  3. If you want to know by how much the budget was amended, ask the institution, through a written request for information of public interest, for the previous version of the 2026 revenue and expenditure budget and for the explanatory memorandum behind the revision. It cannot be inferred from the Official Gazette of Romania.
  4. Seafarers and the companies that pay for courses at CERONAV can use the budget as a reference point in a discussion about fees: 50,251,000 lei of course revenue, 175 employees, 70,000 lei budgeted for the professional training of the centre’s own staff.
  5. Employees of the three entities can check the salary fund for themselves. At the aeronautical authority, 30 people times 8,786 lei times 12 months gives 3,162,960 lei, to which are added 206,000 lei for the head of the entity, 121,000 lei for the governing board and 10,000 lei of delegation entitlements, so 3,499,960 lei against the 3,500,000 lei entered under cash salary expenditure.
  6. Medical services suppliers and Medserv Min’s partners can read row 59 of the annex: 32,000 lei of overdue receivables, on total revenue of 8,326,000 lei. Row 58, overdue payments, is zero.
  7. If you are following an investment that was started and left unfinished at one of the two transport institutions, ask what happens to the budget appropriations unused at 31 December 2026 and whether the objective returns to the 2027 budget. The surplus carried over, 9,100,000 lei at the aeronautical authority and 14,765,000 lei at CERONAV, shows that the answer matters.
  8. When comparing salaries across the three entities, check the basis of calculation first. In the first two, the average gross monthly earnings exclude the amount intended for the head of the entity; at Medserv Min, the indicator is determined on salary-type expenditure of 6,299,000 lei, measured against 91 employees.

Frequently asked questions

What exactly was approved on 21 October 2026?
Three revenue and expenditure budgets for 2026: the amended budget of the Civil Aviation Safety Investigation and Analysis Authority, through Order no. 1.024/2026, the amended budget of CERONAV, through Order no. 1.025/2026, and the budget of Medserv Min, through Order no. 1.101/1.401/1.395/2026. The first two appeared in issue 882 of the Official Gazette of Romania, Part I, the third in issue 881.
From when do they apply?
From 21 October 2026. None of the three orders provides a different date, and normative acts of central public administration bodies that do not set a date themselves enter into force on the date of publication.
What is the total and how much is that per day?
On the 2026 budget appropriations, 111,165,000 lei. From 21 October to 31 December 2026 there are 72 calendar days, 49 of them working days. That gives 1.54 million lei per calendar day and 2.27 million lei per working day, and for capital expenditure alone, 747,000 lei per working day.
Where does the money of the authority that investigates aviation accidents come from?
From own revenue. The annex shows 15,500,000 lei of current revenue, all of it entered under item 36.10.50 „Alte venituri”, other revenue, and 9,100,000 lei drawn from the previous year’s surplus. The nature of those 15,500,000 lei is not detailed in the act.
Who pays for training seafarers?
For the most part, the people who take the courses. Revenue from running qualification and retraining courses is 50,251,000 lei of CERONAV’s 78,389,000 lei, that is 64.1%. The subsidy from the state budget is 2,600,000 lei, and European funds account for 10,555,000 lei.
What is Medserv Min and who collects the profit?
A company based in Târgu Jiu that provides medical services for the mining industry, with 91 employees. The 2026 budget provides for 127,000 lei of net profit, of which 7,000 lei goes to legal reserves and 60,000 lei to dividends. In the annex, the dividends appear entirely on row 37, „dividende cuvenite altor acționari”, dividends due to other shareholders, while row 35, the state budget row, is zero.
What does „amended budget” mean and by how much was it amended?
It means a revision of the budget approved earlier in the year, based on Article 16(1)(e) of Law no. 500/2002. By how much it was amended cannot be established from the published acts: the annexes have a single column, „Program 2026″, with no earlier figure, no difference and no reference to the act amended.
What is the difference between commitment appropriations and budget appropriations?
A commitment appropriation is the amount for which obligations may be signed, while a budget appropriation is the amount that can be paid out in the year concerned. At the aeronautical authority the two coincide, at 24,600,000 lei. At CERONAV they are 84,723,000 and 78,389,000 lei, a difference of 6,334,000 lei that comes entirely from the item for programmes financed from the European Regional Development Fund.
How many people work in the three entities and how much do they earn?
296 people: 30 at the aeronautical authority, 175 at CERONAV, 91 at Medserv Min. Average gross monthly earnings are 8,786 lei at the first and 9,838 lei at the second, while at the third the published indicator is 5,676 lei per employee, determined on the basis of salary-type expenditure. The bases of calculation differ, so the figures are not directly comparable.
What happens if the revenue is not collected?
Article 2(2) of the orders for the aeronautical authority and for CERONAV states that the institution may incur expenditure in proportion to the degree to which revenue is collected. The ceiling may be exceeded only in justified cases and only with the approval of the minister of transport and infrastructure.

Errors and inconsistencies in the published text

  • Order no. 1.025/2026, Article 2(1), read against the annex, item 84.10 „CHELTUIELI TOTAL”, total expenditure. The article states, in the singular, that „cheltuielile totale aferente veniturilor înscrise în bugetul de venituri și cheltuieli modificat”, the total expenditure corresponding to the revenue entered in the amended revenue and expenditure budget, constitutes maximum limits and may not be exceeded. For 2026 the annex gives two different figures for total expenditure: 84,723,000 lei in commitment appropriations and 78,389,000 lei in budget appropriations. The text does not say which of the two is the maximum limit. Reading it against the revenue leads to 78,389,000 lei, since that is exactly the total own revenue in the same annex, but the row bearing the heading „CHELTUIELI TOTAL” contains both values. The 6,334,000 lei difference comes entirely from item 56.48, the programmes financed from the European Regional Development Fund for the 2021-2027 financial framework, where the commitment appropriation is 19,924,000 lei and the budget appropriation 13,590,000 lei, broken down as 3,462,000 against 2,282,000 lei for national financing, 13,946,000 against 9,228,000 lei for European Union financing and 2,516,000 against 2,080,000 lei for ineligible expenditure. The lack of clarity carries over into paragraph (2): if the revenue does not materialise, expenditure is incurred „proporțional cu gradul de realizare a veniturilor”, in proportion to the degree to which revenue is collected, and the text does not show which total the proportion is calculated against. An authorising officer and a supplier can both read, in good faith, two different ceilings for the same year. Order no. 1.024/2026, for the aeronautical authority, does not raise the problem: both appropriations are 24,600,000 lei.

Editorial analysis

The figure that says most about these three orders is written in none of them. From 21 October to 31 December 2026 there are 72 calendar days, and once Saturdays, Sundays and the holidays of 30 November, 1 December and 25 December are taken out, 49 working days remain. Into them must fit 111,165,000 lei of budget appropriations, of which 36,609,000 lei of capital expenditure. That means 2.27 million lei per working day in total and 747,000 lei per working day for capital alone. The item hardest to execute in that span is also one of the largest: 9,999,000 lei of construction at the aeronautical authority, 40.6% of its entire budget, payable in 2026.

The second observation comes from putting two rows together. The aeronautical authority covers 9,100,000 lei of its budget, 37.0%, from the previous year’s surplus, and CERONAV 14,765,000 lei, 18.8%. Together, 23,865,000 lei, that is 23.2% of the 102,989,000 lei held by the two transport institutions, is money left unspent in previous years. Set beside the date of approval, the number describes a cycle rather than an accident: a budget increased on 21 October, with capital appropriations that can no longer be executed by 31 December, produces the surplus that will be carried over and reauthorised the following year, again in the autumn. The aeronautical authority has more than three times as much capital money as staff costs, 11,035,000 against 3,580,000 lei, with 30 people to commit it and to keep track of it.

The arithmetic of the annexes, on the other hand, holds up, and that deserves saying just as plainly. The salary fund of the aeronautical authority can be rebuilt exactly from the published data: 30 people times 8,786 lei times 12 months gives 3,162,960 lei, plus 206,000 lei for the head of the entity, 121,000 lei for the governing board and 10,000 lei of delegation entitlements, a total of 3,499,960 lei against the 3,500,000 lei entered in the annex. The difference is 40 lei. At Medserv Min, every calculation printed in the row headings checks out, including total expenditure per 1,000 lei of total revenue, 982, and the profit distribution: 127,000 minus 7,000 lei for the legal reserve gives 120,000, out of which 60,000 lei in dividends. An annex in facsimile that closes at every level is not the rule, so it should be said.

The criticism concerns transparency. The arithmetic stands, the readability does not. Two of the three orders approve „amended” budgets without showing what they are amended against, and at the aeronautical authority 15,500,000 lei, 63.0% of revenue, sits in a line called „Alte venituri”, other revenue, with no breakdown. At Medserv Min, an order issued by three ministries on the basis of financial discipline at operators in which the state holds a majority stake allocates all 60,000 lei of dividends to „other shareholders”, while the row for dividends due to the state budget stays at zero. None of these three things is a calculation error; all three make the budget harder to read than it needs to be.

What should be changed

  • The annex of an amended budget should have three columns: previously approved programme, amended programme and difference. The reader would see at once whether the amount has gone up or down and under which title, without asking the institution for documents.
  • A revision order should give, in the preamble or in an article, the number of the act amended and the issue of the Official Gazette of Romania in which it appeared. The two versions would become traceable, and a transcription error in the annex would show up on comparison.
  • Article 2(1) should say expressly whether the maximum limit is the commitment appropriation or the budget appropriation. At CERONAV, where the two differ by 6,334,000 lei, the authorising officer and the suppliers would know which amount caps them in 2026 and what the proportion in paragraph (2) is calculated against.
  • Any revenue line exceeding, say, 10% of the total should be broken down in the annex. At the aeronautical authority, that would show what finances the 15,500,000 lei entered under „other revenue”, nearly two thirds of the budget of the body that investigates civil aviation accidents.
  • Revisions to the budgets of subordinate institutions should be published by a cut-off date, 30 September for instance, and any later ones should be accompanied by a note showing what can still be executed in the days that are left. Capital appropriations would no longer be increased in the last 49 working days of the year, and the surplus carried over would stop being the default financing mechanism.
  • The basic budget of a state-owned economic operator should appear in the first quarter, and if it appears later, it should be accompanied by the execution figures from 1 January to the date of approval. At Medserv Min, that would show what happened during the 293 days of the budget year that elapsed before the budget took effect.

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. 881 and no. 882 of 21 October 2026, pages 7-9 in no. 881 and pages 2-5 and 6-10 in no. 882 16 pages PDF, 158 KB the act starts on page 2

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The other editions cited: nr. 881/2026

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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.