Romania's integration policies for beneficiaries of international protection have slightly regressed since 2017, according to the National Integration Evaluation Mechanism (NIEM).

NIEM is a benchmark developed by a consortium of universities and NGOs from 14 member states, as part of an EU-funded project. NIEM allows for the comparative assessment of national integration policies based on 173 indicators and three phases of policy evolution: 1) setting the legal framework, 2) building the public policy framework, and 3) implementation and collaboration. It aims to provide authorities with the evidence and tools needed to improve national integration policies.

NIEM's Romanian partner, the Center for Public Innovation, has produced an evaluation report of Romania's national integration policies.

From 2017 to 2019 the integration policy framework deteriorated:

The second phase of NIEM, with which this evaluation report is concerned, reveals a deterioration in the quality of integration policies in Romania, particularly with regard to legal frameworks. The aggregated scores for Romania in 2019 - which all fall below the average of the 13 other countries in the consortium - were:

• 58.9 / 100 for setting legal frameworks;
• 37.2 / 100 for building the public policy framework;
• 20.3 / 100 for implementation and collaboration.

3 structural causes of this relatively poor performance from Romania have been identified:

1. Poor harmonisation of legislation in the field of asylum/integration, specifically relating to labour, health, education and citizenship;
2. A lack of accountability for the authorities in charge of different integration areas, in particular those of education and employment;
3. A lack of transparency and dialogue between the parties involved in integration policy making.

The full report can be viewed or downloaded here.