An IT auction of tens of millions of euros, launched by the dismissed president of ADR, has been cancelled. What irregularities are invoked

The new president of the Authority for the Digitization of Romania (ADR), Cătălin Giulescu, decided on Friday to cancel the procurement procedure for the “National Interoperability Platform – PNI”, an IT platform that was supposed to ensure the automatic exchange of data between public institutions, and for citizens to make fewer trips to the counter. The reason cited is that the launch of the acquisition, in February of this year, during the mandate of the recently dismissed ADR president Dragoș Vlad, “was done prematurely, without fulfilling the legal conditions.”

“The decision to cancel the purchase is based on the identification of irregularities in the initiation of the procedure, which can generate a legal deadlock, because the authority is unable to commit public expenses and, therefore, cannot sign the purchase contract at the end of the evaluation”, the Authority for the Digitization of Romania announced on Friday.

The IT contract, with an estimated value of over 123.8 million lei (about 25 million euros), financed with European funds, was launched in February of this year, during the mandate of the recently dismissed ADR president, Dragoș Vlad. Three groups of companies submitted bids in this procedure, according to data from the Electronic Public Procurement System (SEAP).

“The launch of the public procurement procedure was done prematurely, without meeting the conditions expressly provided by the law, in the sense that, on the date of publication of the announcement, on 10.02.2026, there was no Government decision adopted regarding the necessity and opportunity to carry out investment expenses related to the “National Interoperability Platform – PNI” project, a mandatory act that confers the legal right to carry out expenses from the public budget and validates the opportunity of the investment. Lack of decision to the Government for the approval of the purchase substantiation note leads to the impossibility of the signing of the legal commitment (purchase contract) by the Authority for the Digitization of Romania with the potential bidder declared the winner”, the ADR press release states.

What legal provisions were not respected

The new management of ADR claims that the provisions of art. 14 and of art. 42 para. (1) lit. a) from Law no. 500/2002 on public finances, which stipulates that the approval of the documentation of public institutions must be carried out as follows:

“(1) The technical-economic documentation related to new investment objectives/projects and the approval documentation for intervention works, the substantiation notes regarding the necessity and opportunity of carrying out the expenses related to the other categories of investments included in position C “Other investment expenses”, which are financed, according to the law, from public funds, are approved by:

• a) Government, for values ​​greater than 100 million lei;
• b) the main orderers of loans, for values ​​between 10 million lei and 100 million lei;
• c) the other credit officers, for values ​​up to 10 million lei, with the prior consent of the hierarchically superior credit officers, regarding the necessity and opportunity of the investment.”

Under what conditions will the auction be resumed

“The National Interoperability Platform represents an administration digitization project surpassed only by the Governmental Cloud in terms of impact on citizens and state infrastructure, and this project cannot be started without full compliance with the legislation.

At the moment when all the mandatory steps imposed by the normative acts in force will be fulfilled, the public auction procedure will be resumed”, the ADR press release also states.

What IT services should we have? What will the costs be?

By implementing this IT project, public institutions will operate and interact through a common technological platform to provide high-quality services, the authority claims.

“Citizens will be able to provide personal data to the government only once, and public institutions will be able to reuse this data for the provision of services,” states the ADR.

The National Interoperability Platform (PNI) will have to ensure:

• integrations with the IT systems of providers of basic registers and of public institutions that use data from basic registers.
• integration with the EIDAS node and the PSCID/RoeID project, which will provide the digital authentication of Romanian citizens.
• integration with the Single Digital Gateway portal – PDURo project.
• integrations with electronic services from the portals of sectoral government institutions (service hub systems – e.g. MAI, MMJS, ONRC, ANAF, Ministry of Education, MAE).
• integrated public services offered to citizens and the business environment, as well as the reduction of administrative burdens when accessing national public services.

The total value of the project is over 164.4 million lei, of which the eligible non-refundable FEDR amount is 123.2 million lei, and the eligible non-refundable amount from the national budget is 41.1 million lei.

The dismissed president of ADR: This project has a legal basis

A few days after his dismissal, the former president of ADR, Dragoș Vlad, made several clarifications, on May 4 on Facebook, regarding certain accusations brought against him in the public space, including regarding the National Interoperability Platform

“PNI is probably one of the most important projects for the modernization of the Romanian state. The National Interoperability Platform is not a technical fad. It is the backbone of the connected administration. It is the project that allows institutions to exchange data legally, securely and automatically. It is the project that can transform the “once-only” principle from a European promise into a reality for the Romanian citizen. With PNI, the citizen would no longer have to carry papers between institutions. The state should know what data it already has and reuse it correctly, in compliance with the law, security and data protection”, stated Dragoș Vlad.

The former president of ADR also referred to the legality of this project.

“This project has a legal basis: Law No. 242/2022. It has a signed financing contract. It has CTE approval. It has unconditional ex-ante ANAP approval regarding procurement documentation, technological neutrality and equal treatment. The procedure was in the evaluation of offers. If there were questions regarding the specifications, costs or technical solution, they had to be clarified institutionally, through the mechanisms provided by law: ANAP, CNSC, audit, control, technical commissions, courts, official correspondence. An approved, necessary and strategic procedure cannot be delegitimized by public pressure. And when a project with a law behind it, signed funding and approvals is presented publicly as a problem, the legitimate question is: who wins if the real interoperability of the state is delayed?”, he added.

Dragoș Vlad accuses Oana Gheorghiu of influence peddling

After his dismissal from the leadership of ADR, Dragos Vlad complained that Deputy Prime Minister Oana Gheorghiu would have pressured and even trafficked in influence in favor of the German giant Schwarz Group, through a series of e-mails sent from the official address of the Deputy Prime Minister to the heads of several institutions, including ADR. He declared, for Gândul, that he is considering filing a criminal complaint, because her actions could amount to influence peddling.

In response, in a post on Facebook, Oana Gheorghiu accused him of “fake news”, stating that all her activity was public and transparent, and that those invoked were not of a commercial or secret nature, but were exploratory discussions about which she also communicated in the public space.

Asked about this situation, Prime Minister Ilie Bolojan claimed on Friday, in an interview with HotNews, that Deputy Prime Minister Oana Gheorghiu did not do anything “illegal or immoral” when she sent emails to the Authority for Digitization of Romania (ADR) and the Special Telecommunications Service (STS) asking if the institutions were interested in digital services offered by the German company Schwarz Digits.