A new assessment carried by CRPE examines how the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights is understood, integrated and applied in Romania, identifying gaps between formal commitments and effective protection of fundamental rights.
As part of the GRACE project, CRPE has assessed the implementation, promotion and awareness of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights in Romania, as part of a broader effort that includes both Bulgaria and Greece. The assessments examine national needs and challenges in order to inform targeted training programmes and advocacy activities. In Romania, the assessment provides a comprehensive analysis of the place of the Charter within the country’s legal, institutional and policy framework.
The EU Charter in Romania: strong formal guarantees, limited practical use
Romania has a solid legal framework for fundamental rights, but the Charter remains underused in practice.
The Needs Assessment Report is the first comprehensive analysis of the integration of the EU Charter into Romania’s broader human rights infrastructure and its practical application. Rather than focusing exclusively on the formal legal status of the Charter, the assessment examines the country’s legal, institutional and policy landscape, identifying key challenges, gaps, promising practices and opportunities for strengthening its effective use.
The analysis follows four interconnected pillars: State of Play, examining legal and policy frameworks; System, mapping relevant stakeholders and institutional mechanisms; Specificity, assessing awareness, use and the perceived added value of the Charter; and Strategy, identifying the training needs of key target groups and the main findings relevant to future advocacy activities.
The assessment finds that Romania has formally secured the place of the Charter within its legal system. However, this formal compliance has not yet translated into consistent and meaningful use. The key challenge is therefore not primarily normative, but practical: the Charter remains underused and its added value is insufficiently understood, including among professionals who could benefit from applying it.
Romania’s human rights architecture continues to rely mainly on national constitutional guarantees and the European Convention on Human Rights. Engagement with the EU Charter remains limited across legislative bodies, central and local authorities, courts, independent regulatory and oversight institutions, equality bodies and the Ombudsman. The lack of systematic training further contributes to the limited integration of the Charter into legislative, administrative and judicial practice.
A fragmented Human Rights system limits the Charter’s impact
The absence of a national human rights strategy and fragmented institutional responsibilities make the implementation of the Charter more difficult.
Romania does not currently have a national coordination mechanism for human rights or a comprehensive national human rights strategy or action plan. This fragmented and often reactive approach is also visible in relation to the Charter. Responsibilities are divided between the Charter Focal Point within the Ministry of Justice and a separate coordination unit within the Ministry of European Funds, without a broader national framework bringing these efforts together.
The result is a significant gap between Romania’s extensive formal commitments to human rights and their practical implementation. Romania has ratified key international human rights treaties and conventions, while the Constitution recognises the primacy of international human rights norms. Yet national human rights institutions remain comparatively underdeveloped, and the institutional environment needed to proactively protect, exercise and enforce rights remains limited.
The assessment identifies a broader structural challenge: human rights are often approached as external requirements or conditionalities rather than as national values and guiding principles for democratic governance and public policy. This perception also affects the way the EU Charter is understood. Instead of being treated as a comprehensive and potentially unifying framework for fundamental rights, it is frequently seen as a specialised EU law instrument.
This perspective is reinforced by gaps in legal education and professional training. Judges, prosecutors, lawyers and civil servants may encounter the Charter in the context of EU law courses, but its broader horizontal relevance is rarely addressed. The limited availability of continuous training makes it more difficult to use the Charter as an interpretative tool, a source for policy development and a framework for strengthening existing human rights protections.
From formal compliance to effective application of fundamental rights
The Charter is rarely integrated into decision-making processes in a substantive way, while public awareness remains among the lowest in the EU.
The research highlights significant gaps in the way fundamental rights and Charter considerations are incorporated into public decision-making. Despite existing legal obligations, Charter considerations are largely absent from ex ante decision-making or are addressed in a formalistic manner. The impact assessment mechanism associated with the Consultative Council includes consideration of economic, budgetary, social, administrative and environmental effects, as well as compliance with EU law and the Charter, but there is limited evidence of systematic follow-up.
The challenges vary across institutional settings. In legislative and executive decision-making, the application of the Charter is characterised by institutional neglect. In the judicial context, it tends to be used in a technical and reactive manner rather than as a broader interpretative framework. In the context of European funds, the Charter remains affected by limited awareness and operationalisation. At the same time, institutions responsible for monitoring and safeguarding fundamental rights often lack the capacity needed to apply the Charter effectively.
Public awareness represents another major challenge. According to the 2025 Eurobarometer survey, Romania records the lowest level of awareness of the EU Charter among EU Member States. Only 27% of respondents demonstrated awareness of the Charter, while just 5% had heard of it and knew what it was. Romania also recorded the highest proportion of incorrect answers concerning the Charter.
The problem therefore goes beyond a simple lack of information. Limited awareness is connected to the absence of a coherent national approach to the Charter and to the wider difficulty of translating human rights commitments into everyday policies, institutions and practices. The gap between formal guarantees and effective enforcement remains a structural challenge for Romania’s fundamental rights framework.
Bringing the Charter home: From formal commitments to a rights-based culture
The EU Charter can provide a common framework for fundamental rights, but its potential depends on stronger institutional ownership, training and practical implementation.
The assessment concludes that the EU Charter has significant potential to serve as a unifying and modernising framework for fundamental rights in Romania. It can help connect constitutional, European and international standards and provide a common structure for understanding and protecting rights and freedoms. Yet this potential remains largely untapped.
Strengthening the Charter’s role in Romania requires a shift from formal recognition towards practical implementation. This includes integrating Charter considerations into legal education and continuous professional training; strengthening the capacity of public authorities and independent institutions; improving the integration of fundamental rights into legislative and administrative decision-making; and ensuring that the Charter is meaningfully considered in the design and implementation of programmes supported by EU funding.
The findings also point to the need for greater coherence in the national human rights architecture. A stronger coordination framework, clearer institutional responsibilities and a more systematic approach to training and awareness could help move the Charter beyond its current status as a relatively specialised EU law instrument.
The GRACE assessment ultimately highlights a wider challenge for Romania’s human rights system: the gap between rhetorical commitments and formal guarantees on the one hand, and effective protection and enforcement on the other. Bringing the Charter “home” therefore means making it part of Romania’s everyday legal, institutional and democratic culture, a practical framework through which fundamental rights are understood, promoted, protected and enforced.
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Funded by the European Union under the Citizens, Equality, Rights and Values (CERV) Programme. Views and opinions expressed are however,those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.