In brief

  • The State aid scheme for investment in ports gets a new calendar. Measure 1, the one for port infrastructure and dredging, closes on 31 December 2026, with payments until 31 December 2028. Measure 2, the one for energy efficiency, may grant aid until 31 December 2028, with payments until 31 December 2030.
  • The budget of measure 2 stays at 150 million euro from the Modernisation Fund, but is converted at the InforEuro rate for June 2026, of 5.2481 lei to the euro. The result is an envelope of 787.2 million lei.
  • Any call for projects launched after 31 December 2026 under measure 2 depends on a suspensive condition tied to a European regulation that has not yet been adopted. The order invokes it, but defines it nowhere.
Act: Order of the acting Minister of Transport and Infrastructure no. 822 of 1 September 2026
Published: Official Gazette of Romania (Monitorul Oficial) no. 762 of 8 September 2026
In force from: 8 September 2026, the date of publication

The 150 million euro the State is holding aside for Romanian ports have had, since 8 September 2026, a closer deadline and a condition hooked to it. Order of the acting Minister of Transport and Infrastructure no. 822/2026 rewrites three articles of the State aid scheme approved in 2023 for investment in waterborne transport. It is the sixth intervention of this kind in seven days, after the five orders, nos. 817-821/2026, published on 2 September, which slipped the same clause into other transport financing schemes.

The scheme in question was approved by Order no. 1.848/2023, published in Official Gazette of Romania no. 954 of 23 October 2023. In its initial form it had a single component: European money for building, replacing and modernising infrastructure in seaports and river ports, for access roads in the port area and for dredging, with a budget of 1.11 billion euro, half from the Cohesion Fund and half in co-financing from the State budget or from local budgets. In 2025 the ministry added a second component, measure 2, financed from the Modernisation Fund, which pays for investment in cutting energy consumption in ports: modular container-type battery charging stations, on-site energy production from renewable sources and electricity storage systems.

The present order touches three things. It rewrites in full the article setting out how long the scheme lives, replaces the paragraph fixing the budget of measure 2 and adds a calculation rule that cuts from the aid the profit the investment will bring the beneficiary. The rest of the scheme, including the ceilings per project and the aid intensities for port infrastructure, is left untouched.

The genuinely important piece is paragraph (3) of the new Article 14. There the ministry acknowledges that the European basis on which the whole scheme rests, Regulation (EU) no. 651/2014, expires on 31 December 2026, and undertakes to align the scheme with the regulation that will take its place, also seeking a fresh opinion from the Competition Council. If the alignment is not carried out, contracts can no longer be signed. Paragraph (4) goes further and blocks, for measure 2, both the launching of calls and the granting of aid after 31 December 2026, until what the text calls a suspensive condition is fulfilled.

The order is signed, for the acting Minister of Transport and Infrastructure, by state secretary Horațiu-Lucian Cosma. Article 9(7) of Government Decision no. 370/2021 on the organisation of the ministry allows the minister to delegate, by order, part of his powers to the state secretaries, and paragraph (4) of the same article is the one that gives him the power to issue orders. The signature is therefore covered.

What it changes in practice

For port administrations, for private operators in ports and for the town halls that run small ports, the immediate effect is a calendar. Aid under measure 2 may be granted until 31 December 2028, and the money may actually reach the accounts by 31 December 2030. Between the last day on which a contract can be signed and the last day of payment there are exactly two years. The same distance of two years exists at measure 1 as well, between 31 December 2026 and 31 December 2028, so the ministry has kept the same ratio for both components.

The calendar runs late in the accounts of the ports themselves as well: the 2026 budgets of the Constanța and Galați administrations were approved only on the 264th day of the year.

The second effect is financial and shows only if you do the conversion. The budget of 150 million euro is converted at the InforEuro rate for June 2026, published by the European Commission at 5.2481 lei to the euro. The envelope of measure 2 is therefore worth 787,215,000 lei. The rate is frozen at the month of June, which means that any later depreciation of the leu does not increase the amount available. By way of comparison, the InforEuro rate for September 2026 is 5.2584 lei to the euro, 0.2% above the one used in the order.

The third effect is a narrowing of the aid per project. The new paragraph added to Article 18 says that aid granted under measure 2 may not exceed the difference between the eligible costs and the operating profit the investment brings. The profit is deducted in advance, on the basis of the financial analysis of the project, through reasonable estimates or through a recovery mechanism. Translated: a port that installs photovoltaic panels and batteries and saves money on its bill does not receive aid for the whole investment, but only for the part that does not pay for itself. The rule already existed in the scheme for investment in port infrastructure. Now it applies to the energy component as well.

The fourth effect is uncertainty. For any call launched after 31 December 2026, the ministry puts in its own way an obstacle it cannot remove on its own, because it depends on the adoption of a regulation in Brussels and on an opinion of the Competition Council. Anyone drawing up an investment plan for 2027 has nothing from which to work out the date on which the window opens.

What has changed compared with the previous situation

The clearest comparison is with the 2023 version, which is also the only one published on the official legislative portal. There the scheme applied until 31 December 2025, with payments until 31 December 2026, had a budget of 1.11 billion euro and estimated a maximum of 100 beneficiaries. There was no measure 2, no money from the Modernisation Fund and no reference to energy efficiency. The distance between that form and today’s is an additional budget of 150 million euro and four more years of life.

Compared with the immediately preceding form, the one resulting from the amendment made in 2025, the order changes the duration of measure 2 and the way the aid for it is calculated. Here it has to be said plainly what can be checked and what cannot. The documentation put out for public consultation by the ministry on 8 July 2025 announced, for measure 2, application of the scheme until 31 December 2029, payments until 31 December 2030 and a project implementation period that may not go beyond 30 June 2030. The text published now fixes 31 December 2028 for the granting of aid, a year earlier than the ministry announced. The form actually adopted in 2025 cannot be consulted on the legislative portal, which still displays the 2023 version, so we cannot state whether the deadline was shortened by this order or whether it was 2028 from the moment of adoption.

What is certain is that the new element of the order, paragraphs (3) and (4) of Article 14, did not exist in the 2023 form and did not figure in the 2025 consultation documentation either. The clause on alignment with the future European regulation appears for the first time in this scheme and is identical in substance to the one introduced on 2 September 2026 into five other transport schemes. The order makes a correct distinction here: it limits the block in paragraph (4) to measure 2, because measure 1 closes on 31 December 2026 in any case, that is on the day the European regulation expires as well.

Finally, the budget of measure 2 remains 150 million euro, the same figure the ministry announced in July 2025. What changes is the reference month for the exchange rate. At the InforEuro rate for June 2025, of 5.0608 lei to the euro, the same 150 million meant 759.1 million lei. At the June 2026 rate it means 787.2 million. The difference, 28.1 million lei, comes exclusively from the depreciation of the leu by 3.7% in a year, not from an additional allocation.

Advantages and disadvantages

What it improves

  • Measure 2 gets two more years for granting aid than measure 1, which gives time to energy investments that call for studies, grid connection approvals and building permits.
  • The ministry expressly acknowledges that the European basis expires at the end of 2026 and takes on a written undertaking to align the scheme, instead of leaving the problem unwritten until it turns up.
  • Deducting the operating profit aligns measure 2 with the rule already applied to port infrastructure and reduces the risk of a beneficiary drawing aid for an investment that would have paid for itself anyway.
  • The block in paragraph (4) is limited to measure 2, so it does not needlessly hinder the completion of the calls under measure 1, which close on 31 December 2026 in any case.
  • The budget is expressed with a clear reference month for the exchange rate, which removes any argument about which rate applies at the moment of contracting.

What remains a problem

  • The suspensive condition invoked by paragraph (4) is defined nowhere in the order, so nobody can say what exactly has to happen for the ministry to be able to open a call in 2027.
  • Paragraphs (3) and (4) give different answers for the first six months of 2027, the adaptation period provided for by the European regulation.
  • The order does not say how long the transitional period on which everything depends lasts, although it mentions it three times in the same paragraph.
  • There is no transitional provision for financing applications already submitted or for contracts already signed under measure 2, if any exist.
  • The fixed June 2026 exchange rate means that, if the leu depreciates before contracting, the envelope in lei does not grow, while the works will cost more.
  • The deadline for completing the investments, announced by the ministry as 30 June 2030, is not touched by this order, although the date up to which aid may be granted closes 18 months earlier.

Practical advice

  1. If you are preparing a project under measure 2, treat 31 December 2026 as the real decision date, not 31 December 2028. An application filed and contracted by then depends on no future regulation.
  2. Ask the Directorate-General for European Transport Programmes in writing, through a request for public interest information, what exactly the ministry considers to be the suspensive condition in Article 14(3) and who establishes that it has been met. The answer is the only reading you will be able to invoke later.
  3. Put into the project budget the rate of 5.2481 lei to the euro, the one for June 2026, not the rate of the day. A difference of a few percent decides whether one more budget line fits within the ceiling or not.
  4. Work out the operating profit of the investment before you submit, not afterwards. The aid is reduced by exactly that amount, and an optimistic financial analysis cuts your own financing.
  5. Check the applicant’s guide for measure 2 for the ceilings per project and for the profit recovery mechanism. The order expressly refers to the guide for the details, so you will not find everything in the scheme.
  6. If you run a port that is not on the TEN-T network, measure 2 concerns you all the same, unlike measure 1, which is tied to the core and comprehensive network.
  7. Keep an eye on the publication of the new European block exemption regulation. Without it, the 2027 and 2028 calls cannot open, whatever the ministry’s calendar says.

Frequently asked questions

When does Order no. 822/2026 enter into force?
On 8 September 2026, the date of publication in Official Gazette of Romania no. 762. Ministerial orders enter into force on publication, unless they themselves provide for a later date, and this order does not.
Who can take money from measure 2?
The national companies that administer port infrastructure, private port operators, local authorities for the ports they administer and the other administrators of waterborne transport infrastructure, under Government Ordinance no. 22/1999. Projects may be submitted both for ports on the TEN-T network and for ports outside it.
What exactly is financed through measure 2?
Investment in cutting energy consumption in ports, among it modular container-type battery charging stations, on-site energy production from renewable sources and the related electricity storage systems. These are investments in increasing the capacity of the port’s electricity network, not in quays or dredging.
How much money is there and how much is that in lei?
150 million euro from the Modernisation Fund. At the InforEuro rate for June 2026 indicated by the order, that is 5.2481 lei to the euro, it means 787,215,000 lei.
Until when can projects be submitted?
The order does not fix a submission date, but a date up to which aid may be granted, 31 December 2028. The opening and closing dates of each call are set by the applicant’s guide. For any call opened after 31 December 2026, however, the condition in Article 14(4) applies.
Why does 31 December 2026 matter?
Because that is when Regulation (EU) no. 651/2014 expires, the European regulation that exempts this scheme from having to be notified to the European Commission. Without a basis of that kind, the aid cannot be granted.
What happens if the new European regulation is late?
The order says that, in the absence of alignment, contracts can no longer be concluded and aid can no longer be granted under the scheme. The current regulation provides in Article 58(4) for an adaptation period of six months after expiry, that is until 30 June 2027. What happens inside those six months is precisely the point the order leaves unclear.
Does anything change for investment in quays, access roads or dredging?
The deadlines remain the known ones for measure 1: aid is granted until 31 December 2026, payments are made until 31 December 2028. The ceilings per project and the aid intensities are not touched by this order.
What does it mean that the operating profit is deducted?
The aid may not exceed the difference between the eligible costs of the investment and the gain the investment brings the beneficiary from operating it. The deduction is made before the aid is granted, on the basis of the financial analysis of the project, through reasonable estimates or through a mechanism by which the State recovers the difference later.
The order is signed by a state secretary. Is it valid?
Yes. Article 9(4) of Government Decision no. 370/2021 provides that the Minister of Transport and Infrastructure issues orders, and paragraph (7) of the same article allows him to delegate part of his powers to the state secretaries by order.

Errors and inconsistencies in the published text

  • Article 14(4) refers to a suspensive condition that paragraph (3) does not establish. Paragraph (4) says that the launching of calls and the granting of aid under measure 2 after 31 December 2026 are done „only after the suspensive condition provided for in paragraph (3) has been fulfilled”. Paragraph (3), however, contains an undertaking by the ministry and two prohibitions, not a condition. Three distinct facts are mixed together in it: the adoption of the new European block exemption regulation, the amendment of the scheme in order to bring it into line with that regulation and the fresh opinion of the Competition Council, to which is added the submission of a summary information sheet, required only „if it will be necessary”. The three happen on different dates and belong to different authorities. A port administrator planning to submit in 2027 cannot establish from the published text which of them opens the window and who establishes that it has happened.
  • Article 14(3) and paragraph (4) give different answers for the first six months of 2027. Paragraph (3) prohibits the conclusion of contracts „after the expiry of the transitional period provided for by the Regulation”, which means that, inside that period, contracts remain possible even if the scheme is not yet aligned. Paragraph (4) prohibits, for measure 2, the granting of any aid after 31 December 2026 until the condition is fulfilled. The adaptation period provided for in Article 58(4) of Regulation (EU) no. 651/2014 is six months from the end of the validity of the regulation, so it closes on 30 June 2027. For the interval from 1 January 2027 to 30 June 2027, one paragraph allows contracts to be signed, the other stops them. The difference decides whether a call can open in the first half of 2027 or not, and 150 million euro are at stake.

Editorial analysis

The figure that says most about this order does not appear in it. Measure 2 may grant aid from the day of publication, 8 September 2026, until 31 December 2028, that is 845 days. Of those, only 114 days, up to 31 December 2026, are covered by Regulation (EU) no. 651/2014, the basis the order invokes. Adding the six-month adaptation period provided for by Article 58(4) of the same regulation, we reach 295 days. That leaves 550 days, that is 65% of the granting window, resting on a European regulation that has not yet been adopted and whose content is not known. The ministry does not hide this, on the contrary, it writes it down. But it writes it down as an undertaking, not as a solution, and an undertaking cannot be put into the budget of a port.

The second observation concerns proportions. Measure 2 is worth 150 million euro against the 1.11 billion of measure 1, that is 13.5% of the budget of the port infrastructure component and 11.9% of the total scheme, which now reaches 1.26 billion euro. The ministry’s documentation of July 2025 estimates a maximum of 100 beneficiaries for measure 2 and an average annual budget of no more than 75 million euro per competitive procedure. From those two figures follows an average aid of 1.5 million euro, that is 7.87 million lei, and a plan built for roughly two financing rounds. Since the first round has to fit inside the 114 safe days, the whole balance of the scheme hangs on the second, which is precisely the conditional one.

The third observation is a mismatch of calendar that the order leaves behind it. The ministry announced publicly, on 8 July 2025, that the implementation period of the projects under measure 2 may not go beyond 30 June 2030. The present order closes the granting of aid on 31 December 2028, so a beneficiary who signs the contract on the last possible day has 18 months in which to finish the investment, while one who signs in 2027 has between two and three years. The difference between the two situations does not come from a public policy decision, but from the delay of a European regulation. The 2025 consultation documentation also shows that measure 2 was to apply until 31 December 2029, a year longer than the text published now provides. The form actually adopted in 2025 is not available on the official legislative portal, which still displays the 2023 version, so we cannot establish in which of the two orders the year was lost.

It is worth saying what is right as well. Narrowing the block to measure 2, through paragraph (4), is correctly done, because measure 1 dies out with the regulation in any case. The deduction of the operating profit, added to Article 18, aligns the energy component with the rule already applied to port infrastructure, with the same footnote about reasonable estimates and a recovery mechanism, so it is a consistent addition, not an improvisation. One thread does keep repeating, however. On 2 September 2026 we flagged, at Order no. 818/2026, that the reference to a suspensive condition remains without object, and on 7 August 2026 we had flagged the same thing at the „e-Mobility RO” scheme. This is the third time in five weeks that the same formula has travelled between schemes without being completed. It is not a drafting slip, but a template text that is being copied.

What should be changed

  • Define the suspensive condition in the very paragraph that establishes it. A single sentence saying that the window opens on the date of publication in the Official Gazette of Romania of the alignment order, following the opinion of the Competition Council, would turn an uncertainty into a date anyone can check.
  • Write into the scheme the length of the transitional period and the date on which it ends. It is six months, under Article 58(4) of the regulation, so 30 June 2027. The text mentions it three times without quantifying it, and the reader has to open the regulation in order to find out.
  • Align paragraphs (3) and (4) for the January to June 2027 interval. Either contracts can be signed during the adaptation period, or they cannot. Both solutions are defensible, but the text cannot contain them both.
  • Match the date for granting aid with the deadline for completing the investments. If the implementation deadline stays 30 June 2030, the last day for contracting should be chosen so that every beneficiary has the same minimum period of execution, not between 18 months and three years depending on luck.
  • Publish the consolidated form of the scheme together with the amending order. The legislative portal still displays the 2023 version, although the scheme has been amended at least three times. A port operator cannot read today, in one place, the rules under which he is submitting.
  • Add a transitional provision for the files under assessment. The order changes the way the aid under measure 2 is calculated, by deducting the operating profit, without saying whether the rule applies to applications submitted before 8 September 2026 as well.

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. 762 of 8 September 2026 16 pages PDF, 113 KB the act starts on page 4

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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.