In Romania, the field of cultural heritage benefits from a large, but insufficiently harmonized regulatory framework, which specifically regulates all the aspects of protection, especially for the field of moveable and immoveable cultural heritage. For each field of cultural heritage there are special laws and application norms.
The main pieces of legislation regulating the field of cultural heritage in Romania are:
Moveable cultural heritage
- Law no. 182/2000 on the protection of the national moveable cultural heritage, republished, with subsequent modifications and amendments;
- Order no. 2035 / 2000 for the approval of the Methodological Norms for the record, management and inventory of the cultural assets held by museums, public collections, memorial houses, cultural centres and other such cultural units;
- Order no. 2.239 / 2019 for the approval of the Norms regarding the re-evaluation of the moveable cultural goods held by public institutions, with a view to ensuring their correct reflection in accounting documents;
- Government Decision no. 886/2008 for the approval of the Norms of classification of the moveable cultural goods;
- Order of the Minister of Culture and Religious Affairs no. 2.009/2001 for the approval of the Norms for the accreditation of experts, with subsequent changes and amendments;
- Government Decision no. 1420/2003 for the approval of the Norms regarding the trade with moveable cultural goods, with subsequent changes and amendments;
- Order of the Minister of Culture and Religious Affairs no.2044/09.05.2001 on the set-up of the Registry of destroyed, stolen, vanished or illegally exported cultural goods owned and/or managed by public and private legal persons and the Methodology of inscribing such goods in the respective Registry;
- Decision no.518/2004 for the approval of the Methodological Norms on the permanent or temporary export of moveable cultural goods;
- Ordinance no. 44/ 2000 on some measures regarding the insurance of the temporarily-exported moveable cultural goods – Republished;
- Government Decision no. 1221/2000 for the approval of the Methodological Norms regarding the issuing of the governmental guarantee certificate;
- Government Decision no. 1546/2003for the approval of the Norms for the conservation and restoration of classified moveable cultural goods;
- Government Decision no. 216/2004on the authorizing the conservation and restoration laboratories and workshops, with subsequent modifications and amendments;
- Order of the Minister of Culture and Religious Affairs no. 2.008/2001 for the approval of the Norms of accreditation of conservators and restorers, with subsequent modifications and amendments.
Museums and public collections
- Law no. 311/2003 on museums and public collections, republished;
- Order of the Minister of Culture and Religious Affairs no. 2297/2006for the approval of the Criteria for granting the prior endorsement for establishing museums and public collections;
- Order no. 2057/2007 for the approval of the criteria and norms on licensing museums and public collections;
- Order of the Minister of Culture and Religious Affairs no. 2.185/2007 for the approval of the norms for classifying museums and public collections.
Immoveable and archaeological cultural heritage
- Law no. 422/2001onhistorical monuments, republished, with subsequent modifications and amendments;
- Order no. 2495 din 26 august 2010 for the approval of the Methodological Norms on the licensing of specialists, experts and technical controllers in the field of historical monuments protection;
- Order of the Minister of Culture and Religious Affairs no. 2.260/2008 for the approval of the Methodological Norms of classification and inventory of the historical monuments, with subsequent modifications and amendments;
- Order of the Minister of Culture and Religious Affairs no. 2.237/2004 for the approval of the Methodological Norms of marking historical monuments, with subsequent modifications and amendments;
- Order of the Minister of Culture and Religious Affairs no. 2.684/2003 for the approval of the Methodology of drawing up the Obligation regarding the use of the historical monument and of its contents;
- Government Decision no. 493/2004 for the approval of the Methodology of monitoring historical monuments inscribed in the World Heritage List and of the Methodology regarding the drafting and the framework-contents of the protection and management of the historical monuments listed in the World Heritage List;
- Government Decision no. 1.430/2003 for the approval of the Methodological Norms on the situations wherein the Ministry of Culture and Religious Affairs and the local public administration authorities, respectively, contribute to the coverage of the costs of protection and intervention on historical monuments, on the proportion of the contribution, the procedures, as well as the conditions that the owner – other than the state, municipality, town or commune – must meet;
- Government Decision no. 610/2003 for the approval of the Methodological Norms regarding the procedure of granting the credits necessary to carry out protection works on the historical monuments owned by private natural or legal persons;
- Order no. 2173 of 28 March 2013for the approval of the Regulations of organising and functioning of the National Commission of Historical Monuments;
- Government Ordinance no. 43/2000on the protection of the archaeological heritage and the institution of some archaeological sites as areas of national interest, approved with modifications and amendments by Law no. 378/2001, republished, with subsequent modifications and amendments.
- Order of the Minister of Culture no. 2.072/2000 on the establishment of the Register of Archaeologists;
- Order of the Minister of Culture and Religious Affairs no. 2.458/2004 on the Establishment of the Regulation of the National Archaeological Repertoire;
- Order of the Minister of Culture and Religious Affairs no. 2.426/2005 for the approval of the methodological norms for inscribing several priority archaeological sites in the List of areas of national archaeological interest;
- Order of the Minister of Culture and Religious Affairs no. 2.483/2006 for the approval of the List containing the Areas of priority archaeological interest;
- Order of the Minister of Culture and National Heritage no. 2.494/2010 for the approval of the Methodology of licensing the specialised personnel in the field of archaeological research and its inscription in the Register of Archaeologists;
- Law no. 50/1991 on the authorization of construction works, republished, , with subsequent modifications and amendments;
- Law no. 350/2001on land planning and urbanism, with subsequent modifications and amendments;
- Order of the Minister of Culture and Religious Affairs no. 2.183/2007 for the approval of the Methodology of financial evaluation of the damage on the immoveable national cultural heritage – historical monument or archaeological site.
Industrial heritage
- Law no. 6/2008 on the legal regime of the technical and industrial heritage.
Intangible cultural heritage
- Law no. 410/2005 on the acceptance of the Convention on the safeguarding of the intangible cultural heritage;
- Law no. 26/2008 on the protection of the intangible cultural heritage;
- Order of the Minister of Culture and Religious Affairs no. 2491/2009 for the approval of the Regulation on granting the title of Living Human Treasure;
- Order of the Minister of Culture and Religious Affairs no. 2.436/2008 on the drafting of the National Programme of safeguarding, protection and valorisation of the intangible cultural heritage;
- Order of the Minister of Culture and Religious Affairs no. 2.236/2008 on the organisation, functioning and duties of the National Commission for the Safeguarding of the intangible cultural heritage.
For the moveable and immoveable cultural heritage the legislation establishes a mechanism of special protection, the classification. The moveable cultural goods may be classified, depending on their cultural relevance, into two categories, thesaurus and basic fund, while the immoveable goods and sites fall into three categories of historical monuments: monument, ensemble and site.
For both the moveable and the immoveable heritage the law establishes restrictions on usage, the right to intervention (obligations of attested/licensed personnel’s endorsement and carrying out of interventions must be met) on the classified goods, there are inventory requirements, approval requirements on conservation and restoration, of traffic monitoring, as applicable (property transfer, selling, export etc.)
The interventions on classified moveable and immoveable cultural assets are reserved of certain specialists only, selected by means of administrative mechanisms of certification (historical monuments, archaeology) or accreditation (moveable heritage), based on the relevant expertise in the field and on the endorsement of a commission (in the case of archaeology and moveable heritage, there are national commissions involved, while in the field of historical monuments there is a special commission).
Since 2006, there have been discussions in Romania on the encoding of the legislation in the field of the cultural heritage. Working groups set up in 2014 and 2016, respectively, set the premises for the approval of the Prior Theses of the Cultural Heritage Code (approved by Government Decision no. 905/2016). These theses underpin the drafting of the Cultural Heritage Code – a process currently under development, as part of the project “Historical Monuments – strategic planning and optimized public policies” (P.O.C.A. – Support for the implementation of quality management, simplified measures for citizens and the business environment, systematization of legislation and systemic evaluation of the regulatory framework). In the codification process the legal and administrative deficiencies are analysed and the established mechanisms are revised, with a view to be optimized.
2021 is the estimated deadline for the approval of the new Cultural Heritage Code.
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