A delegation of the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) visited Romania from 27 to 31 May 2024 as the first step in the preparation of a monitoring report. The visit was preceded by online meetings on 21 May 2024. During the visit, ECRI’s delegation gathered information on effective equality and access to rights, hate speech and hate-motivated violence, and integration and inclusion.

The delegation held meetings with representatives of the government and other competent authorities, the Parliament, the equality bodies (namely the National Council for Combating Discrimination and the People’s Advocate), other independent bodies, civil society organisations, international organisations, the media, independent experts, researchers and groups of concern to ECRI. The delegation also travelled to Cluj-Napoca, where it met with representatives of the local authorities and of the civil society, as well as with members of the Roma community in Pata Rât. Furthermore, it had talks with teachers from the Nicolae Bălcescu Theoretical Highschool and with migrants and local civil society actors providing support to them.

Following this visit, ECRI will adopt a report in which it will make a new set of recommendations on measures to be taken by the authorities to address racism and intolerance in the country. The implementation of two priority recommendations will be reviewed in two years’ time after the publication of the report as part of ECRI’s interim follow-up procedure.

In its 2019 report, among other recommendations, ECRI recommended that the authorities develop legislation on gender recognition and gender reassignment in line with the Council of Europe guidelines.

It also strongly recommended that the authorities take urgent steps to ensure that anyone who engages in hate speech as covered in Article 369 of the Criminal Code is duly prosecuted and punished.

For more information on previous ECRI reports on Romania, please visit ECRI’s country monitoring page.