EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT
COMMITTEE ON PETITIONS
Notice to members
SUBJECT:
Petition No 706/99, by Mr Günther Kreutz (German), on Community funding for
Romanian orphanages
I.
Summary of the petition :
Having learned that the European Commission has earmarked five million Euros of Community
funds to aid Romanian orphanages, the petitioner requests that the funds are transferred via official
bodies in Germany and Romania which could be relied upon to ensure that the funds reach those
who need it most.
II.
Declared admissible on 31 January 2000, the Commission was asked to provide information
pursuant to Rule 175(3) of the Rules of Procedure
III.
The reply from the Commission, received on 26 October 2000 reads:
The petition suggests spending Phare funds reserved for direct urgent aid for Romanian
childcare institutions through a German NGO and a Romanian adoption NGO.
Since 1990, the Commission has been providing, mainly through Phare, assistance worth
some 100 M€ to Romania, to address the delicate situation of children in institutions. While
in the early years humanitarian assistance was predominant, programmes are now designed to
address the structural situation and reform of Romania’s childcare policies. Currently a 25 M€
Child Protection Programme from the Phare 1999 National Programme is being put in place
in order to assist the recently established National Agency for Protecting Children’s Rights in
designing and implementing structural reform policies.
For the implementation of Phare programmes the Commission has to follow existing
procedures. The basic rule is that management of Phare programmes is decentralised meaning
that the beneficiary country's government (the Romanian government in this case) is
responsible for its implementation and may conclude contracts for the supply of goods or
services. Contracts are awarded following a competitive selection process by tender and are
subject to ex-ante control by the Commission Delegation in Bucharest. This is what happened
in the case to which the petitioner refers. In addition, considering the special nature of this
project, the Romanian authorities and the Commission agreed to a special monitoring contract
to guarantee correct implementation.
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The 5 M€ allocation for direct urgent assistance to childcare institutions, mentioned in the
petition, was in fact a re-allocation of funds from an ongoing Phare project following a
financial crisis in the child protection sector in Romania. After consultation with the Member
States, the Commission decided in July 1999 to re-direct a total amount of 10 M€ from the
Phare 1998 National Programme for Romania towards urgent direct assistance to childcare
institutions in Romania. This emergency project was implemented as follows:
A first tranche of 4,5 M€ was used to supply non-perishable food to 157 institutions
(30.000 children), covering the needs for nine months. The contract was awarded to a
procurement agent, selected on the basis of a tender. Over 3.500 tonnes of food, plus
vitamins and disposable nappies, have been delivered to the institutions since November
1999. The list of priority institutions to receive help was established by the Romanian
Department for Child Protection in co-operation with the Secretariat of State for the
Handicapped and the Ministry of Health (which had responsibilities for specialised
institutions before a single National Agency with overall responsibilities was set up). A
team of inspectors checked the needs of the institutions, and the storage capacity. The
inspectors also paid unannounced visits to the institutions in order to verify that the food
was correctly delivered, properly stored and used.
A second tranche of 4 M€ for repairs to infrastructures (children institutions) has been
contracted to a Romanian and an Austrian NGO, which were selected after a competitive
tender.
A contract for technical assistance for 1.5 M€ has been concluded in order to ensure monitoring of
the delivery and use of both tranches of humanitarian aid and to recommend on legislative and
institutional changes which would ensure a sound basis for further Phare support to structural
reform in the sector.
IV.
Complementary reply from the Commission, received on 7 May 2002
On 21 March 2001, the Committee on Petitions discussed the Petition by Mr Günther KREUTZ and
heard a statement from the Commission representative. At the end of the discussion, the Committee
decided to closely monitor the situation. Following this request, the Commission services provide
the following information update.
In May 2001, the Government of Romania adopted a revised National Strategy on Child Protection,
which represented a significant step forward in developing a coherent policy on this issue.
Implementation of the reform of the child care system, focussing on decentralisation and de-
institutionalisation, is now well under way. The Government has also substantially increased
budgetary allocations for the system, as well as for subsidies to families with children with the
objective of reducing abandonment and preventing institutionalisation.
The current implementation of the 1999 Phare Programme on Child Protection should also lead to a
significant improvement of child protection in Romania. A similar programme for which 10M€
have been committed in 2001 will follow this programme. The current programme has a budget of
25 M€ and includes the following components:
Closure of old-style residential care institutions by creating and developing of community
integrated child welfare projects at local level, with special emphasis on prevention of child
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abandonment and de-institutionalisation (p.e. daycare centers, family type homes, foster care, re-
integration projects, maternal centers). The projects are implemented by the local Departments
for Child Protection, sometimes in cooperation with NGOs.
Technical assistance (using EU member states’ expertise through “twinning”, i.e. the secondment
of national experts to the government of Romania) to facilitate co-operation between the
Ministry of Labour and Social Protection services (at central and local level) with childcare
departments (at central and local level). The main goal of this project is to ensure that Romania’s
overall social protection policies are effective in providing support to families with children at
risk, and preventing abandonment and institutionalisation of children.
A national public awareness campaign aimed at preventing abandonment of children and their re-
integration into (natural, foster or national adoptive) families. The campaign has started end 2001
and has a high visibility (TV, radio, billboards, leaflets). Information sessions are also organised
for professional groups, such as doctors, social workers, teachers and priests.
The issue of international adoptions from Romania has received considerable attention in the past
few months. In this respect, the Commission, in its 2000 Regular Report on Romania’s progress
towards Accession, expressed concern over serious shortcomings in Romanian legislation and
practice on international adoptions, which risked giving rise to abuse.
The Romanian government itself recognised that its legislation was not only inadequate, but also
that it gave rise to abuse in implementation for reasons of insufficient administrative capacity on the
part of Romanian institutions themselves. In the face of this situation, the Romanian government
took the decision to suspend international adoptions.
In its 2001 Regular Report on Romania’s Progress towards Enlargement, the Commission
welcomed this moratorium as a mechanism to end practices that were incompatible with Romania’s
international obligations under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and which
risked opening opportunities for trafficking in children and other forms of abuse. The Commission
maintains that the Romanian authorities need to reform legislation on international adoptions and
develop the appropriate administrative structures and capacity in order to ensure that adoption
decisions are made exclusively in the best interest of the child. This should be done prior to
international adoptions being resumed.
In order to achieve this objective, the Romanian authorities are receiving full support from the
European Commission, various countries and UNICEF.
With respect to pending cases (that is, individual cases where adoption procedures had been started
but had not been completed when international adoptions were suspended), the Romanian
Government adopted an emergency ordinance on 6 December 2001, providing for the completion of
intercountry adoption procedures for cases that had already been dealt with, or were being dealt
with, by the courts when the moratorium was decided. This ordinance also allows the government to
forward pending cases to the courts in “exceptional circumstances”. The Romanian authorities are
now carefully considering which adoption cases may proceed and a substantial number of pending
cases have been resolved.
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