Business Integrity Country Agenda – an important project for Romania looking forward to 2030

Conceived as a collective action to promote integrity in the Romanian business environment, on medium and long term, the Business Integrity Country Agenda (BICA) project contributes significantly to shaping important strategic documents at national level, including the National Anticorruption Strategy.

Through the activities carried out in the last two years, the project team managed to create the necessary framework for representative stakeholders from the business environment, public administration and civil society to debate together ideas and solutions to finalize a reform agenda aimed to improve the business integrity. Although it was implemented in a period of many challenges, including the COVID-19 pandemic, the project objectives were successfully met.


Main objectives:

  • Business Integrity Country Agenda Romania research report, document that provides the information needed to strengthen integrity in the business environment, as well as key recommendations to improve the existing situation at national level.

The BICA assessment report is a first for Romania, being a complex and defining analysis for the business sector in Romania, carried out based on a methodology branded by Transparency International and on a multi-source research, such as: legislation, official documents, statistics and interviews with experts and representatives from the business sector, public institutions and NGOs. There were assessed both the thematic areas regarding the influence of legislation and social characteristics on the business sector and how companies contribute to building and developing a business environment based on integrity and transparency.

Beside the evaluation itself, the report also includes a series of recommendations with remedial solutions for the three sectors analyzed, respectively: 15 recommendations for the public sector, 8 recommendations for the private sector and 6 recommendations for the civil society.

  • Operational Reform Agenda, with specific recommendations to be implemented in the medium and long term by stakeholders.

The Reform Agenda represents the basis for collective actions that were started last year, which will continue after the end of the project implementation period.

Recommendations developed within the BICA project were taken over in the draft of the National Anticorruption Strategy 2021-2025, as well as in the draft law transposing of the EU directive on the protection of whistleblowers.

During the project, awareness-raising actions were organized to promote the Reform Agenda, as well as there took place workshops and meetings with business representatives, decision-makers from the public administration and relevant civil society organizations. Thus, a constant dialogue was encouraged, by discussing the conclusions, the recommendations from the research report, as well as proposing concrete actions. Advocacy actions carried out both by TI-Romania and in collaboration with other non-governmental organizations also contribute to the success of the project.

In fact, the BICA research report was launched during an event that brought together an important presence from the three pillars analyzed in the report: the private sector, the public sector and civil society. Among the participating public institutions were: the Court of Accounts, represented by its president, the Ministry of Economy, Energy and Business Environment, the Ministry of Public Finance - Control Body, ANAF, DLAF, the General Anticorruption Directorate, the National Integrity Agency, the National Public Procurement Agency.

Representatives in Bucharest also responded to the invitation from numerous embassies, including the German embassy, the Austrian embassy, the Greek embassy, the British embassy, the Norwegian embassy, the Dutch embassy, the Serbian embassy, the Swedish embassy.

The private sector was particularly interested in the BICA research report, among the participants in the event being representatives of AmCham, CNIPMMR, national and multinational companies and entrepreneurs. Also among the guests were representatives of civil society, such as the Romanian Academic Society, IPP, Patients' College.

The Business Integrity Country Agenda (BICA) project was implemented simultaneous in Romania and Serbia, under the coordination of Transparency International-Secretariat, from January 2019 to May 2021.

The project was financed by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. Through this type of technical cooperation, the financier aimed to strengthen the capacity of civil society to promote business integrity at the regional level.

Information about the activities carried out in the project, including the research report Business Integrity Country Agenda (BICA) in Romania are available on the Transparency International Romania website: www.transparency.org.ro.


Data publicare: 23/07/2021