In 2003, the Ministry for European Integration contracted under Phare program a foreign company to develop a strategy for cooperation with civil society. The document was very poor in terms of content and methodology and CSOs were extremely critical to this strategy. The Officer in charge for the strategy in the Ministry resigned and the strategy was never implemented.
According with the Romanian legislation, NGOs are entitled to propose changes to the Government and the Parliament. This was the case in 2000, when a new law on associations and foundations was developed.
In Romania there is no a specific law regulating civil dialogue, e.g. cooperation with the Parliament, cooperation with municipalities.
The EU benchmarks on strengthening civil dialogue helped in development of framework documents. An example for this is the “sunshine law” – Law on Free Access to Public Information.