General framework

According to the provisions in the EC Treaty, an EU Member State is either a Member State that has adopted the euro, or a Member State with a derogation from the adoption of the single currency, exonerated from some of the rights and obligations that national central banks have as members of the European System of Central Banks.

As a result, in the case of central banks, the accession to the European Union entails two stages which relate to the obligation to fulfill the legal criteria enabling them to participate in the Economic and Monetary Union:

• pre-accession stage, when the compatibility with the acquis communautaire applicable to the Member States with a derogation from adoption of the euro should be achieved, and
• post-accession stage, when the legal convergence criteria needed for the adoption of the euro and therefore the participation in the Eurosystem should be met.

The National Bank of Romania's role in the preparation for Romania's participation in the Economic and Monetary Union in the pre-accession stage.

According to the commitments assumed by Romania (and implicitly by the NBR) under the negotiations on Chapter 11 - Economic and Monetary Union regarding the transposition and implementation into the national legislation of the acquis relating to the banking sector, the National Bank of Romania's Statute has been harmonized with the provisions of the Treaty establishing the European Community, of the Protocol regarding the Statute of the ESCB and of the ECB, as well as of the other community regulations relating to the activity of central banks in the EU Member States. The draft law on the NBR Statute has been adopted by the Senate (on 8 June 2004) and by the Chamber of Deputies (on 24 June 2004) and promulgated through Decree no. 532/26.06.2004, materialized into Law no. 312/28.06.2004 on the Statute of the National Bank of Romania. The new law was published in Monitorul Oficial al României no. 582/30.06.2004 and entered into force on 31 July 2004 (30 days after publication), with the exception of a few articles that entered into force on 1 January 2005. On the date Law no. 312/2004 entered into force, Law no. 101/1998 on the Statute of the National Bank of Romania, further amended and supplemented was abrogated.

The main amendments and supplementations brought to Law no. 101/1998 on the NBR Statute consisted in:

• Clearly indicating that the sole objective of the NBR is to ensure and maintain price stability.
• Strengthening NBR independence, namely:
  • the institutional independence, by: (i) defining the National Bank of Romania as an independent public institution; (ii) stipulating that the National Bank of Romania shall support the general economic policy of the State without prejudice to its primary objective; and (iii) providing for the independence of its decision-making bodies' members from public authorities or from any other institution or authority, when carrying out their tasks;
  • the personal independence, by: (i) appointing all the members of the Board, including those who are filling vacancies, for the entire term of office; (ii) stipulating the possibility to recall from office a member of the Board only if s/he no longer fulfills the conditions required for the performance of her/his duties or if s/he has been guilty of serious misconduct; and (iii) applying the provisions concerning the conflict of interest to all members of the Board and to the executives of the National Bank of Romania, as well as including the reference to the legal provisions on incompatibilities and conflict of interest regime;
  • the financial independence, through the provisions on drawing up the models of the annual financial statements and issuing NBR's own regulations on organizing and conducting the accounting activity, as well as on recording the NBR's economic and financial operations, having regard to the opinion of the Ministry of Public Finance.
• Prohibiting any possibility for public institutions to be directly financed by the central bank, through:
  • prohibiting direct purchase by the National Bank of Romania of debt instruments issued by the State, national and local public authorities, régies autonomes, national corporations, national companies and other majority state-owned companies, in the primary market;
  • prohibiting overdraft facilities or any other type of credit facility with the National Bank of Romania in favor of the State, national and local public authorities, régies autonomes, national corporations, national companies and other majority state-owned companies;
  • charging fees for settlement of operations through the general current account of the State Treasury opened in the National Bank of Romania's records;
  • eliminating the possibility for the National Bank of Romania to grant loans for bridging the temporary gap between revenues to and expenditures of the general current account of the State Treasury, based on agreements signed with the Ministry of Finance;
  • removing any reference to the possibility of transferring government securities for covering losses recorded in the National Bank of Romania's balance sheet.
• Removing the privileged access of public institutions to the resources of financial institutions, by extending the scope of the assets eligible to collateralize the loans granted by the National Bank of Romania to credit institutions; thus, it is removed the indirect obligation to provide government securities as collateral, which could have entailed the obligation for credit institutions to buy government securities.