Results and Discussion

7.4.3.1 Implications of the (not) institutionalised steps in the policy-making process

As Table A.7.2 shows, in Romania the policy-making process is to a limited extent formally institutionalised. While many elements in the policy-making cycle, for example monitoring and evaluation are only – if not obligatory according to EU regulations – partly formally defined, law-making as an instrumental part of the policy-making process is institutionalised to a very high degree. Actually, despite there being laws that frame the law-making process appropriately, as well as national guidelines on how to make good laws and policies on paper,¹⁶⁰ these legal acts are rarely implemented and enforced; as is shown for each step individually in Table A.7.2.

A fundamental problem of sectoral policy-making is that strategy development is not independent from political elections. Consequently, there is limited incentive for compiling a longer-term perspective, as actors are hardly made accountable for the outcome, because even leading technical staff members in the politico-administrative system are likely to change positions as a result of political elections. Due to this deficit in institutional design, there is a lack of continuity in policies and their implementation, resulting from several changes in the government (see, e.g. Section 7.2.1). Thus, a real vision or a sector strategy, in which other policy activities could be embedded, cannot be established. Instead of thinking in longer-term dimensions, calls for changing the legislation are brought whenever problems occur, often without assessing their need. Major policy changes are primarily externally initiated by regulations set up in Brussels. Both kinds of policy initiatives pass over into the national law-making process (Box A.7.4). Despite being to some degree required for enacting a national law, the information and analytical input in the decision-making process and ex-ante evaluation is by trend rather limited. One reason for this is certainly the vague definition of legal requirements, which can, as opposed to other formalities in the law-making process, for example keeping deadlines for forwarding laws to governmental organisations, be more easily bypassed. Indeed, rules are often not uniformly enforced by the Center of Government. Thus, for instance, substantiation notes that should accompany a law (Box A.7.4) are not always founded and assessed by MARD members who are experts in their respective fields.

Moreover, the substantiation notes are often drafted by the technical departments after the

160 Furthermore, one finds several legal loopholes. For example, in terms of public participation, Law 52/2003 on transparency in governmental decision-making was enacted, but the regulations do not apply, for example, to the development of normative acts on certain economic or policy strategies or financial market activities.

Policy-making around LEADER and the NRN in Romania 163 related legislative act has been finalised, which shows that substantiation notes are rather perceived as a formal obligation rather than an instrument.

Furthermore, policy development suffers from the circumstance that within the MARD stakeholders, notably staff in technical departments, appear to have little influence on the process. Indeed, there is a lack of front discussion on policies and legislation proposals. The opinion that law proposals should be better circulated within the ministry for increasing transparency goes strong among some affected parties. The decision on who is consulted on law proposals within the MARD is in the hands of only a few actors (Box A.7.4). For many laws the consultation of other ministries is also required. However, inter-ministerial co-ordination generally appears to remain limited in terms of substance, and the consultation is considered a burden, which is reflected in the low quality of the legislative output (see also UoV 2007), which then again entails difficulties of implementation and enforcement. By some actors external consultation is seen as an unnecessary prolongation of the law-making process.

The dominance of law-making in the “policy”-making process already indicates a lack of democracy. Overall, the number of places and space available for non-governmental actors to get formally involved in the policy-making process is limited. There should be a (formalised) space where policies are discussed and negotiated between actors. It should be understood as opportunities, moments and channels where citizens can act to potentially affect policies, discourses, decisions and relationships that affect their lives and interests (cp. Cornwall and Coelho 2006); such spaces are rare, however, in Romanian agricultural and rural policy-making. Institutionalised processes for participation are: 1) the Social Dialogue; 2) formal stakeholder consultation for preparing the NRDP; 3) the Monitoring Committee; and 4) a limited number of actors who can influence the policy-making process in the various steps (cp. Table A.7.2). The crucial question is now, how these institutions function in practice.

The Social Dialogue, in which law proposals might be discussed and, if necessary, improved in the MARD, consists of 15 stakeholders who are elected for one year – among them are representatives of trade unions, of employment unions, of a confederation of NGOs and the County Councils.¹⁶¹ The dialogue is said to function even if sensitive topics are explored, and to work well compared to the dialogues in other ministries, which might neglect the dialogue’s existence at all. However, the members of the Social Dialogue are only consulted on proposed legislation (they cannot block a law); and only selected laws are discussed with its members.¹⁶² Also, experts assessed its overall influence in and impact on policy-making as low (cp. Figure 7.3). Nevertheless, its establishment is a first step towards broadening the policy-making process.

Consulting the Social and Economic partners, whose effect has been described in Section 7.2, is required during the development of the NRDP; further, Member States shall involve all appropriate partners at the various programming stages (EC/2005/1698, Art. 6). This

161 Broadly defined, a Social Dialogue represents “all types of negotiation, consultation and information sharing among representatives of governments, social partners or between social partners on issues of common interest relating to economic and social policy,” (Rychly and Pritzer 2003, p. 2). Sectoral Social Dialogues were introduced in Romania with the ratification of the European Social Charta (European Council 1996) in the course of EU accession. In Romania, the current legal basis forms Law 62/2011.

162 The limitation of the Social Dialogue as an instrument for participation becomes obvious when considering that various attempts by farmers’ associations to get involved in writing the political agenda for implementing the CAP in Romania have failed. For instance, the Agricultural Ministry excluded members of the Social Dialogue from certain discussions, e.g., from the negotiations on the budget for 2008 (Ciutacu 2008). The functioning of the Dialogue may have improved from 2008-2010, so that the results of the 2010 expert interviews do not necessarily contradict the findings of Ciutacu (2008). Furthermore, since 2008 the notions in policy-making in term of participation are – following the author’s impressions – likely to change with the sitting minister.

defined procedure has been specified in the obligatory establishment of a Monitoring Committee. The Monitoring Committee for the NRDP can be seen as a reduced follow-up institution of the consultation process, to be established with the aim of ensuring the effective implementation of the NRDP (Section 3.1), for instance through consultation on NRDP modifications, examination of progress reports and the right to make proposals for improving the implementation process.¹⁶³ According to the Managing Authority, the Monitoring Committee is quite active; particularly the private sector representatives regularly signal problems and make suggestions for improving the implementation process. However, the committee’s influence on policy decisions is limited. For instance, the members of the Monitoring Committee have a say in defining the criteria for the selection of beneficiaries for certain rural development measures, but they cannot influence budgetary decisions. This is also reflected in the experts’ assessment (Figure 7.3), which attributes the Monitoring Committee formal, but low influence. Moreover, all three institutions, for which the set-up is formally required according to EU regulations, can only take (limited) influence on a small part of the Romanian agricultural policy, because as long as no EC regulation is concerned, their existence could be easily neglected by policy-makers.

Formal political power results from holding key positions in the adoption of laws. Generally, within the ministry only upper management (State Secretary, Minister) can decide to block legislation and/or not pass it at all. Furthermore, the possibility to set up emergency ordinances (ad hoc government legislation with immediate legal effect), which require little MARD-internal and -external observation, and only demand a fast procedure (Box A.7.4) is likely to be exploited by stakeholders. The right of the Executive to legislate through emergency ordinances has reduced the transparency of the legislative process, has limited the opportunity for adequate consultation on draft laws, and has contributed to a situation of legislative instability (UoV 2007).

The parliament holds a pivotal role in establishing and implementing agricultural and rural policies. First of all, almost all normative acts that are decisive for the sector’s development have to pass the parliament, and only a small number can be made solely within the MARD.

Moreover, the parliament has (indirect) influence on the implementation process of policy measures, as it can decide on, for instance, the total number of staff of the agricultural administration and, more importantly, on the budget available for policy measures. Thus, as highlighted earlier, through a parliamentary decision, even the implementation of an accepted programme can be easily blocked. To alleviate some negative impacts of such volatile policy-making and to improve long-term budget planning, a financial stability law was/ had to be enacted in 2010 (EIU 2010). Certainly such interplay between implementation of policies once decided on and later policy formation is not Romanian-specific, but it is a more common phenomenon. However, in a modern democratic state the institutional set-up is created to ensure continuity and to prevent political interference in day-to-day technocratic or administrative decision-making. Administrative independence is seen as important for efficiency, effectiveness, and as an essential safeguard against corruption (Wegener et al.

2011). Following the principle of administrative independency falls short in Romania:

Although regulations for clarifying the relations between political and administrative functions have been established,¹⁶⁴ the reality is that gaps in the legislation and its enforcement, as well as informal governance structures, counteract the idea of separating functions in many regards (see below). For instance, for many technical issues within the

163 The Romanian Monitoring Committee originally consisted of 31 partners, among them social and economic partners, representatives from other ministries and a representative of the EC, who can, but does not have to, participate as an observer. Its membership was extended to 37, plus four observers in 2010.

164 For instance, the Romanian Civil Service Legislation (Law 188/1999, amended by Law 251/2006), aimed to establish a classical unitary Civil Service led by a stable corps of professional and politically-neutral managers and administrators (Wegener et al. 2011).

Policy-making around LEADER and the NRN in Romania 165 implementation process, laws, and thus the involvement of politicians, is needed. Moreover, as the general law-making process, which is required for establishing policies, as well as for technical-administrative issues (Box A.7.4), is rather complex and long-lasting, the implementation of policies is further extremely burdened.

As long as it is not required according to EC regulations, evaluation is not prescribed by law and hardly practiced for policy-making in the Romanian agricultural and rural sector (Table A.7.2).¹⁶⁵ The deficit is not only a governance failure, but has also missed the chance to improve policy, with two rather strategic implications: First, evaluation, which is in fact likely to have a political connotation (High and Nemes 2007), as the values and standards against which results are measured determine the judgement, is not systematically used by policy-makers to enhance their influence; second, if no indicators are commonly agreed upon prior to implementation, actors who make some outcomes of the implementation process public can easily promote a certain opinion, as no reference data is available.

7.4.3.2 Distribution of influence and power in the policy-making process

Mapping the formally-institutionalised governance structures of the policy-formation process for the Romanian agricultural and rural sector has shown that there is little formal involvement of either technical staff or rural actors. Legalised power in the policy-making process is limited to a small circle of actors, who could indeed extend the number of voices considered if desired. The Policy Map (Figure 7.3) highlights another problem affecting policy-making: stakeholders’ total power in policy-making often rests on their informal influence. This also applies to institutions, which are anyway formally involved in the process. One major reason for this is that many functions and processes are not executed according to the regulations, and that laws are not sufficiently enforced.

In the following and in Figure 7.3 institutionalised positions are primarily referred to as such, for instance “State Secretary”; still, the results of the Policy Mapping cannot by implication be applied to another point in time, as the total influence of an actor also depends on that actor's personal networks. Looking at individual actors more specifically, one has to consider that while it is more straightforward to identify a general position in terms of influence for some pivotal actors, for example the Minister of Agriculture, the influence of other actors is likely to vary by political topic.

In the following only the values in terms of actors’ influence and the related degree of formality as they are presented in Figure 7.3 are discussed. The values of the different categories of influence are only presented in Table A.7.3.¹⁶⁶ The mapping shows that generally, the influence of the various DGs in the policy-making process varies significantly due to the personal networks of the individual directors, as well as to certain features of institutionalised procedures. By definition, as they are always involved in the law-making process, the Directorate for Legal Affairs, the DG for Budget and the DG for Rural Development have comparatively powerful positions in the policy-making process. The high degree of influence of the DG for Budget would decrease with the introduction of a binding and more detailed budget plan. The influence of the DG for Rural Development in rural

165 It would not be fair to totally generalise at this point. For instance, some actors in the PARDF, which has to collect monitoring data according to the EC regulations, use the data for their own analyses of the implementation process.

166 The implications of the aggregation of the different categories of actors’ influence in comparison to the overall influence on policy-making assessed by the consulted experts cannot be discussed at this place. For facilitating the graphical presentation, the average degree of formality is used in Figure 7.3 for ranging actors along the x-axis. The average values allow better differentiation between actors than the median values (cp.

Table A.7.3). This is advantageous as the graphical presentation is to provide a general impression of actors’ role in sectoral policy-making. However, because the degree of formality has not been assessed metrically, but translated into numeric values, presenting median values might reflect the data set in a better way.

policies is based on the fact that there are no competing DGs or ministries in this field, as the function of the NRDP Managing Authority is not distributed to different departments/organisations. The State Secretaries have both, informal influence due to political networks, as well as great institutionalised power. If there were a clear demarcation between technical, administrative and political functions, their power would likely decrease.

Noteworthy is their “Gateway power”, meaning decisions in several fields concerning administrative, as well as political matters must have their signature (cp. Footnote 157). The Directors General, who are often closer to the matters concerned, have this “Gateway power”

to a much less extent.

The most obvious example for the impact of actors’ political/social networks is the position of the Deputy General Secretary compared to that of the General Secretary: the deputy was assessed as having much higher influence than the General Secretary (Figure 7.3). The Minister should have a very high overall influence on sectoral policy-making. Though the Minister’s influence in the policy-making process is potentially expandable. This is not only reasoned in the – compared to other actors – low informal influence of the sitting Minister (Figure 7.3), but also in the institutionalisation of his role. Actually, the Minister has to deal with too many issues. Lacking a team on which he can rely, he has to cope with all policy- as well as administration-related tasks, which prevents him from concentrating on decisive issues. The DARDs were assessed to have at least moderate influence on policy-making.

Notably, their influence appears to be not much lower than that of organisations of the agricultural administration acting at the national level, such as the two paying agencies. Of the two, paying agencies and DARD, the nomination of directors is a political issue, which explains the relevance of networks as determinant of their influence. Moreover, the DARDs are strongly linked to the County Councils (see below).

The role of parliament, government, president and prime minister in agricultural and rural policies is ambiguous: Considering the whole policy-making process, the bulk of the high-ranking politicians has a passive role, but nevertheless has decisive power in the end.

Meaning their impact on the content of policy strategies is relatively low, but if issues concern the state budget, their agreement is needed. In this regard, the power of the Ministry of Public Finance was highlighted by several consulted experts. Although the parliamentary Agricultural Commission could be assumed to have particularly high influence as it can strategically bring information into the policy-making process, and partisans will believe it more easily than other sources, its relevance was assessed to be only moderate. A further issue increasing the pivotal position of the parliament in sector-related policy-making is that most normative acts become – unfortunately – only prominent in the media shortly before they are to be discussed in the parliament. Thus, information on the pros and cons of a law proposal might be neglected by the public if the arguments are not part of this parliamentary discussion.

The EC was assessed as having high influence on Romanian agricultural and rural policies at first sight. From the point of view of the technical departments, the EC legislation is considered as pivotal, insofar as the EC has indirectly high influence on the policy-making process. In terms of strategy development the EC’s power would, according to the consulted experts, particularly show up in its decision possibilities on the budgetary distribution.

Policy-making around LEADER and the NRN in Romania 167 Figure 7.3: Policy Map of stakeholders' influence on policy formation for the Romanian

agricultural and rural sector

L o w Infl ue nce Hi g h

Informal

Degree of formality

Note: Actors without political/social networks Actors with strong political/social networks The size of the nodes indicates the influence an actor has due to his ability to place information strategically.

DARD = Directorate for Agriculture and Rural Development DG = Directorate-General PARDF = Paying Agency for Rural Development and Fisheries

PIAA = Paying and Intervention Agency for Agriculture PPU = Public Policy Unit A list of actors registered in this figure can be found in Table A.7.3.

The Policy Map evolves from a list of actors identified as potentially involved in the policy-making process. The influence on policy-making processes of each of the registered stakeholders was assessed and discussed by experts in 2010. A rating was given for the following items: a) general influence perceived; b) influence on initiating laws/changes in laws; c) influence on strategy development; d) influence on the law-making process; e) decision-making power over budget distribution; and f) ability to influence the policy-making process by placing information strategically. Two dimensions of influence are considered: 1) the strength of the influence; and 2) the degree of formality, which expresses whether influence is primarily based on regulations/ normative acts or rather on informal power (Table A.7.3). The Policy Map shows the aggregated scores from the six categories of strength of influence on the y-axis. Average degrees of formality are shown on the x-axis. Actors that the experts believed to have particularly strong (political) networks are marked with a green edge. Note that for reasons of readability actors’ positions might have been slightly moved. For exact coordinate values, see Table A.7.3.

Besides lacking institutionalised possibilities for participation, another reason for low presence of rural actors in the policy-formation process is a lack of self-organisation.

Nevertheless, a few lobby groups having some informal influence can be noted (see also Redman 2008; Shareman 2003). Figure 7.3 indicates that besides the Food processing sector, particularly Agrostar, the Federation of Unions from Agriculture, Food, Tobacco, and Connected Services, and LAPAR, the Agricultural Producers Associations League, appear to be present in the political arena.¹⁶⁷ The final impact on policies of these two organisations best known in the sector, which are both also members of the Monitoring Committee, depends much on the leading political party. In 2010, Agrostar was better organised and thus often appeared in the media. However, the two mentioned organisations only present a small non-representative share of farmers, namely the larger producers, which even as individuals (independent from any organisation) are influential.Large farmers are more acknowledged by the policy-makers than small farmers, and resource-availability might increase the influence of individual actors.¹⁶⁸ Small farmers shy away from the effort of bringing up policy- or administration-related proposals and are not able to organise themselves sufficiently to build up the critical mass required to make their voice heard. Overall, the small-holders are hardly represented in the policy-making process.

Certainly, farmers are not the only stakeholder group affected by agricultural and rural policies. When looking at the Policy Map and searching for other actors that have more or less influence in the policy-making process, it has to be considered that rural development is no traditional policy field in Romania (Section 3.5), and is not considered a high priority among the general public in the NMSs (Mandl et al. 2007). Thus, while environmental organisations might have had an eye on the Agricultural Ministry for quite some time, other stakeholders might have (had) to re-orient. On the other hand, environmental organisations, in the anyway weak Romanian civil societal life, are, compared to other Member States, seldom even present. This might explain why the international environmental organisation, here the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), is the only one registered by name in the Policy Map.

As mentioned in Section 3.5, in Romania most civil society organisations, among which the Center of Rural Assistance and the RuralNet¹⁶⁹ can be counted, are active in the social field.

Despite these organisations being members of the Monitoring Committee and/or the Social Dialogue, their power – even if still low – was assessed as primarily resulting from informal influence. This applies, for instance, to Agrostar, LAPAR, the WWF and the RuralNet. On the contrary, other international organisations, universities and particularly research institutes

167 Farmers’ unions have become more and more active in raising their voice and exercising influence on agricultural policies. Recent media reports highlight that the farmers’ union(s) are not passive actors in the agricultural policy field. Some of the issues they have raised are certainly relevant, e.g. with regard to service delivered by the agricultural administration, for instance criticism on the late transfer of direct payments.

However, here a longer-term strategic influence is not visible. Protests seem short-sighted in some cases. One further farmers’ association has been established at the national level in 2007, the Romanian Federation of Agricultural Producers (FNPAR), which has become a member of the Monitoring Committee in 2010, right before the mapping was conducted. Therefore, the federation might not have been assessed as being an important player in the policy-making process by the consulted experts.

168 Shareman (2003, p. 460) came to the conclusion that the “behind-the-scenes lobbying” of individual state farm managers might have been even more effective than farmers in the associated form, because personal contacts and institutional connections developed under communism have endured and given some agricultural producers a powerful voice in the making and implementation of policy. Without a doubt, this group of actors is still powerful, but for four reasons their influence is likely to have decreased before 2010: 1) agricultural interventions have become more externally and more systematically controlled since the pre-accession period; 2) more state farms have been privatised; 3) the old bureaucrats in the ministry likely to be ensnared into the old networks make room for new ones; 4) farmers’ organisations have become better organised (cp. Footnote 168).

169 The RuralNet, which is a member of the NRN (Section 3.5) and of the Monitoring Committee, is an umbrella organisation which comprises 26 foundations and associations engaged in the development of civil society; e.g.

the Carpathian Foundation and the Centre of Rural Assistance, whereas the latter also has as an individual actor an at least recognisable position in the policy arena and the Policy Map, respectively.

Policy-making around LEADER and the NRN in Romania 169 were assessed to have more formal influence and to have no relevant networks. Relatively high, primarily informal influence was ascribed to the County Councils, which seem to be more relevant than civil society organisations and the Monitoring Committee. Indeed, County Councils can induce pressure on key stakeholders at the national level, who depend on their vote. Moreover, they have the means to effectively spread information locally through the communes and to mobilise actors to pursue their interests.

7.4.4 Summarising discussion - Setting sectoral governance in a broader context