Shaping Romania's National Recovery and Resilience Plan: An Analysis of the Involvement of Civil Society Organizations

Abstract

During the shaping of Romania’s National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NRRP), an environment conducive to the creation of institutional arrangements for socio-centric governance was established. However, these arrangements were not enduring and could not modify the specific path dependency of state-centric governance arrangements. This research presents and analyzes perceptions regarding the extent and way Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) were engaged in the shaping process of Romania’s NRRP. Based on semi-structured interviews with the relevant CSOs, factors that have influenced the involvement of CSOs in shaping Romania’s NRRP about other European fund programming processes, the lessons learned from this process, as well as possibilities of enhancing the current governance regime specific to European funds management were examined.