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The end of summer arrived at the same time as the conclusion of the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NRRP), a compilation of strategic projects and strategic reforms financed through the European NextGenerationEU mechanism, which has become the reference compass in matters of national planning. And because autumn is when the chickens are counted, we are doing our own counting, through the eyes of ordinary citizens who quite rightly ask themselves “what did we lose and what did we gain?”.
Mapping the lost billions
Romania’s initial proposal was worth 29.2 billion euros (2021), a sum which Romania nevertheless renegotiated three times and which finally came down to 20.1 billion euros (of which 13.57 billion in grants and 6.54 billion in loans). The difference of almost 9 billion does not show up in the state’s accounts as a loss, because the grants remained almost intact, with Romania “merely giving up” (acknowledging its own failures) several particularly advantageous loans as it became clear that the projects could no longer be completed on time (major reforms and hospitals, railway sections, dams, energy projects, etc.).
Thus, out of the 29.2 billion that became 20.1 billion, only 13 billion euros have been received so far, with just a single payment request left, scheduled for the end of September. In the European Commission’s ranking, Romania therefore sits in the bottom third for fund absorption and in 25th place out of 27 in terms of the milestones assessed as fulfilled. What is interesting is that Romania delivered on the NRRP relatively satisfactorily where it mainly required the distribution of funds (namely local development, renovations, equipping schools and medical practices, the purchase of equipment), and failed in those aspects where the NRRP required institutional capacity (structural reforms, hospitals, dams, etc.).
In other words, the state failed precisely where it had to design, tender, coordinate, decide and, above all, reform itself in time, failures mapped out in the map drawn up by the journalists at Info Sud-Est, Átlátszó Erdély, Monitorul de Botoșani and Context.ro, which presents visually the thousands of projects taken out of the NRRP. Just as important, however, is the fact that Romania is still obliged to complete these projects, though not with the EU money (or loans) from the NRRP (money now lost), but from local, county and national budgets, that is, mainly from the population’s taxes or from other European funds (which could have been used for other projects).
Digitalisation
In theory, digitalisation was the second pillar of Romania’s plan, with a dedicated component of 1.7 billion euros and with digital measures spread across the other components, adding up to roughly 4.5 billion, that is more than a fifth of the Romanian NRRP. Also in theory, the official tally as of 1 September includes, among other things, the government cloud with more than 30 institutions attached to it, 2.1 million electronic identity cards, over 4,000 schools with IT laboratories and the new health insurance platform.
Government cloud
Delivered: 50 systems migrated (milestone: 30).
The reality: fewer than half of the 85 priority institutions moved; the Cadastre Agency blocked for weeks after a cyberattack.
The electronic identity card
€70m allocatedDelivered: 2.1 m issued (initial target: 5 m); €40m lost.
The reality: electronic verification still not required everywhere (town halls, notaries, ANAF); a digital document in an analogue administration.
My e-Health
€100mDelivered: launched on time (1 Sept.).
The reality: account validated in 24-72h, queues; runs in parallel with paper for another 3 months; many doctors not enrolled.
The National Pension House
€60mDelivered: ~5 m files digitised (the widest coverage).
The reality: a working portal, but a risk of low uptake among older people, with no support at the counter.
In practice, however, the Romanian citizen measures these theoretical components in trips to the counter avoided, in papers the state no longer asks of them and, above all, in services that work when they need them. By these criteria, Eurostat records that in 2025 only 24% of Romanians used the website or the application of a public authority, the lowest share in the EU (against an EU average of 72%), and when it comes, for instance, to electronic identity, Romania is again at the bottom of the ranking, as we analyse in detail below. It is worth asking ourselves whether the investments made through the NRRP will also translate into a rise in the number of Romanians who interact digitally with the state and who benefit from a reliable electronic identity for this purpose (and not only).
Government cloud
Romania’s flagship project was supposed to be the government cloud, conceived as a shared infrastructure in which the state’s applications would work in an interconnected way (and above all exchange data with one another).
The Government Private Cloud is a national IT platform that centralises and modernises the digital services of the public administration. It allows the storage, processing and securing of government institutions' data, facilitating interoperability and providing scalable and efficient IT solutions.
Although the project has been operational since March this year and the European Commission has validated the related milestones, the migration of applications has lagged behind: this summer, fewer than half of the 85 priority central institutions had moved their systems, according to information provided by the ADR to Profit.ro. The latest public information provided by the ADR’s management through its vice-president Andrei Niculae shows that 50 IT systems have been migrated, although the milestone would have been closed with only 30.
A telling example of how important the migration is comes from the shutting down of the Cadastre Agency, hit by a cyberattack over the summer, when all property transactions, the related notarial work and mortgage loans were suspended for several weeks, a situation that could have been prevented (also) through integration into the cloud. Migration to the cloud was marked as a priority by the institution’s management immediately after the incident.
The electronic identity card
Likewise, the electronic identity card (eID) is an example that is even closer to most citizens.
In 2024 the authorities were committing to issue 5 million documents by the summer of this year; subsequently, the target in the plan came down to 3.5 million and then, at the revision of August 2026, to 2.1 million electronic identity cards. These figures are actually encouraging when they are put in perspective against August 2025, when the issuing of the new identity cards effectively began. The target was in fact adjusted according to the result Romania had already reached, though the state lost 40 million euros out of the 70 million euros initially allocated, which points to a potential that constantly coexists with a lack of anticipation, planning and timely handling of certain matters.
Perhaps more important than the final number of eIDs is what can be done with the document: the address was moved off the card and into the chip, but town halls, local tax offices and notaries went on asking for proof-of-address certificates because they had no access to electronic verification; the signature certificate on the card was not recognised by ANAF’s Virtual Private Space; banks, the Trade Register and the employees’ register needed manual updates. The government mainly found these things out from the complaints submitted on the “Fără hârtie” (“Paperless”) platform, launched in March 2026, and began to fix them when more than 1 million people already had the card and felt at a disadvantage compared with those who had stayed with the classic identity card.
We can therefore see how the natural order, interoperability, institutional access to the digital infrastructure, training and then issuing, was reversed, and the result was a digital document carried through an analogue administration and, of course, an uptake two times lower than the target assumed at the beginning of the NRRP.
e-Sănătatea Mea (My e-Health)
Similarly, the e-Sănătatea Mea (My e-Health) platform, part of the new health insurance IT platform, financed with 100 million euros from the NRRP, was launched on 1 September and promises the patient access to their medical history, electronic prescriptions and referrals, online appointments and the possibility of checking which services have been reimbursed in their name.
Even though the launch took place on the milestone’s deadline, on the first day the account was created through the ROeID application, with manual validation within 24-72 hours, resulting in tens of thousands of requests waiting in the queue, with far longer processing times. Following this situation, the government announced an increase in the number of staff handling manual validation and a move to automated validation in the period ahead, which can only indicate that the government is capable of coming up with solutions the moment the pressure and the demand come from citizens.
- Medical history
- Electronic prescriptions and referrals
- Online appointments
- Checking reimbursed services
- Account validated manually in 24-72h (queues of tens of thousands)
- Most providers, not enrolled
- Family doctors, not trained
- The paper referral remains (the legislation has not adapted)
Also with regard to the health platform, most medical service providers were not enrolled in the platform, family doctors said they had not been trained, and the paper referral cannot yet be eliminated because the legislation has not yet been adapted (resulting in the announcement by CNAS (National Health Insurance House) that for the next 3 months the platform will run in parallel with the old procedures). This can only tell us that the measure of the success of digitalisation should not be the technical delivery of a platform, but the degree of its use (and usefulness).
The National House of Public Pensions
Last but not least, the National House of Public Pensions only just completed its 60 million euro NRRP, with a Virtual Private Space through which all categories of applications can be submitted online, from the retirement file to the other benefits, and through which the contribution record, Pillar II contributions, the pension decision and the electronic pension slip (e-Talon) can be consulted. The Pension House is, in fact, the institution through which the NRRP reached the largest number of Romanians, with almost 5 million files in payment having been digitised.
In this case, the portal seems to be working for now and should, in theory, spare pensioners the trips they used to have to make (although it is not yet clear whether the processing time for files and, respectively, the correctness/correction of the files will improve). But just as with the other projects, its usefulness will also be measurable in actual use, especially by the older age groups. Because if only 24% of Romanians interact online with the state, among older people the share is, predictably, much smaller. So without digital literacy efforts, without assistance at the counter, at the post office or through relatives, the portal risks remaining a tool for… the children of today’s older people.
What is (still) to be done?
To sum up, if we were to convey a visual image on the subject of digitalisation and the NRRP, it would be the following analogy: the NRRP allowed us to buy a home, but how and whether we furnish it is a responsibility that must not be lost sight of.
So clear governance, central coordination and an overall vision remain necessary, but this post-mortem “obituary” needs measurable commitments, with deadlines and with people responsible for them, starting precisely from the figures in this article.
Government cloud
Government + ADRThe government and the ADR should publish a migration plan with pre-set deadlines for the priority institutions still outside the cloud, with the target that 80 out of the 85 institutions (over 90%) be migrated within the next 12 months, that is by the middle of 2027, together with a quarterly public report on the state of these migrations.
e-Sănătatea Mea (My e-Health)
CNASCNAS should publish monthly the number of enrolled providers and of patients with an active account, while also committing to usage targets (for example 25% of insured people with an active account by the end of 2027 and 50% by the end of 2028).
The electronic identity card
GovernmentThe government should set a deadline by which all public institutions, notaries and banks are able to verify the data in the chip electronically, including the address, and by which the signature on the card is recognised by ANAF's Virtual Private Space.
The Pension House
CNPPCNPP should report monthly the share of applications submitted online and the average processing time for files, before and after the launch, in order to analyse whether digitalisation has changed the processes behind the counter, and CNPP should also organise, through the territorial pension houses and through the Post Office, assistance for older people in creating an account and submitting applications.
All these commitments (and many others) should be tracked in a single public adoption dashboard, updated monthly under the coordination of the government, in which the indicators (among others) would be the use of services and the time saved by the citizen. And for the long term, the lessons inherited from the NRRP should be applied in the Multiannual Financial Framework 2028-2034: future milestones deserve to be tied to adoption and to usage indicators, so that investments are centred on the citizen.
a public usage target, (for example raising the share of Romanians who interact online with the state to 40% by 2028 and to the current European average, 72%, by 2034)
a maintenance budget and one for training (& retaining) staff over the long term
adapted legislation before the launch
interoperability solved before documents are issued or portals are opened
leaders, governance and politically accountable people
Anticipation, prevention and an orientation towards usefulness, which we invoke at the end of every European exercise, become verifiable only when they are concentrated and operationalised in figures, deadlines and people responsible.
The end of the NRRP exercise should be the occasion for an honest discussion about what we lacked in order to deliver more and how we can prepare better for the future European Multiannual Financial Framework (2028-2034), how to anticipate, to prevent the fires that then need putting out and to orient ourselves towards usefulness and towards adoption.