Development Region – from NGO Status to Public Institution Status

In order to advance on the path of regionalization, in the absence of a constitutional amendment and an administrative-territorial reorganization, we formulated a lege ferenda proposal to transform the development region from an NGO into a public institution endowed with legal personality; within the framework of Law no. 315/2004 on regional development in Romania, we also propose to grant the Regional Development Council a status at least equal to that currently enjoyed by the subordinate NGO, i.e. the Regional Development Agency (RDA). Although it only partially resolves a problem of strategic positioning of the development region as a legal entity and of the regional deliberative body as a structure that acts under public power and issues administrative acts, the legislative amendment proposed by us consolidates the regional level in the architecture of decentralization policy, following steps similar to those taken by France in the 1960-1970s.