Romania’s interim Economy and Digitalization Minister, Irineu Darău, said that the cancellation of the public procurement procedure for the National Interoperability Platform (PNI) marks “a step toward normality,” arguing that it stops what he described as toxic practices in Romania’s digitalization sector.

According to Darău, the previous leadership of the Authority for the Digitalization of Romania launched a tender worth more than 164 million lei without the legally required government approval for the project’s technical and economic indicators. He warned that this could have created a legal deadlock, preventing the state from signing the contract after the evaluation process.

The minister also criticized the technical approach proposed in the tender documentation, saying it relied on closed proprietary technologies with unsustainable maintenance costs and lacked long-term financing for nationwide scaling. He added that the project failed to reflect the new European Interoperability Regulation (EU 2024/903).

Darău stated that Romania needs “a modern, decentralized and sovereign platform” where the state fully controls its own data, instead of an outdated centralized hub. He said future work on the interoperability platform would focus on open solutions, predictable costs, and compliance with both Romanian and European standards.

Source: Agerpres