Although the Romanian government claims to have undertaken steps to foster social partner involvement – including by carrying out consultations within the Tripartite National Council for Social Dialogue and by setting up an inter-ministerial working group on economic and social measures to mitigate the effects of the COVID-19 outbreak, also claiming that social partners were consulted on proposals related to the minimum wage – you should know that the consultation process was merely formal. In the end of the day, the decision of the Government was exclusively political. Social partners were not involved in discussions on the draft Recovery and Resilience Plan, and we perceive that the social dialogue in Romania is not sufficiently meaningful and has limited influence on reforms at national level. The adequate and timely involvement of the social partners in policy development remains a challenge.
The involvement of the social partners from the incipient phase of elaboration of the NPRR may contribute to a better capitalization of the significant effort for the mobilization of such resources.
The European Commission is officially informed on the 10th of March.