We will use all available funding to increase Romanians' digital skills

We are determined to use all available funding lines to increase Romanians' digital skills and we target to train over 100,000 citizens and 2,000 SMEs, according to Chairman of the Authority for Romania's Digital Transformation (ADR), Dragos-Cristian Vlad, who recently attended a meeting in Poland of EU Chief Information Officers (CIO).

"The fundamental objective of ADR is to develop electronic public services and to offer citizens the opportunity to interact 100% online with the Romanian state. We are determined to use all available funding lines to increase the digital skills of Romanians and we target to train over 100,000 citizens and 2,000 SMEs," Vlad is quoted as saying in an ADR press statement released on Tuesday.

During the meeting of European leaders, strategic issues related to digitalisation, IT&C and innovation in the public sector were discussed.

Romania announced that, as far as cloud infrastructure is concerned, it moved from the "Cloud first" principle to the "Cloud only" concept. "The Government Cloud project is advancing, providing a secure and scalable infrastructure for all public applications," the release reads.

At the same time, Vlad presented the European Commission's Romania 2024 Digital Decade Country Report, which highlights that Romania has made significant progress with the digitalisation of SMEs and public services, the result of capitalising on European and national funds for digital transformation - for example, 21.8% of the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR) dedicated to digital projects - and ADR's strategic efforts.

"As far as the e-government component is concerned, Romania showed an increase in the score related to the digitalisation of essential public services of 20.2%. Romania's growth is significantly higher than the EU average of 3.6%. In the case of online provision of essential cross-border public services, Romania's growth is 45.1%, which is also significantly higher than the EU average of 4.3%. With regard to essential public services intended exclusively for the business community, Romania recorded a 10.2% increase in the score for national public services and a 26% increase in the score for cross-border public services intended exclusively for the business community, with the latter being significantly higher than the average of 0.9% recorded elsewhere in the EU. At the same time, the business community was extended support programess for digitalisation. In 2024, 26.8% of SMEs had a baseline level of "digital intensity" - up from 22.2% in the previous year," according to ADR.


Also, with regard to digital public services, ADR expanded the offering of electronic services accessible online, such as, for example, the launch by the end of 2023 of 34 digital "life events" through the ROeID application (services of the Ministry of Interior, Companies Registry, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, etc.).

At the same time, ADR published government mobile applications for key state services, so that citizens can interact with the administration from anywhere and anytime.

"Buttressing the digitalisation of the administration are strategic interoperable platforms. ADR provides ROeID, the national unique digital authentication system. Romania is able to offer a unique electronic identity to each citizen through ROeID. In this way, we bring public services one click away from the public," according to the ADR chairman.

During the EU Chief Information Officers meeting, ADR announced the next stages of the digital transformation of the Romanian administration: ongoing projects aimed at interoperability, state information architecture, digital wallet services, digital security and the use of Artificial Intelligence in public administration.