Emergency Ordinance no. 31/2025: between procedural efficiency and normative improvisation

In force since April 30, 2025, Emergency Ordinance no. 31/2025 aims to regulate certain measures for simplifying procedures in the field of urban planning and construction, as well as accelerating investments.

Preliminary Aspects

In a context where the Romanian urban planning sector was holding its breath in anticipation of the long-promised Urban Planning Code adoption, the legislator has chosen to respond in a regrettably manner to the current urban planning realities through a new emergency ordinance, namely Emergency Ordinance no. 31/2025. In force since April 30, 2025, Emergency Ordinance no. 31/2025 aims to regulate certain measures for simplifying procedures in the field of urban planning and construction, as well as accelerating investments (“GEO no. 31/2025”).

As the preamble of the normative act itself states, GEO 31/2025 aims to ensure the unlocking of the potential of the construction sector, reducing administrative burdens, stimulating investments, accelerating project development, in order to ultimately support the acceleration of investments within the deadlines assumed under Romania’s National Recovery and Resilience Plan.

At the recent National Conference on Urban Planning and Territorial Development Law, now in its 6^th edition, we felt the same aspirations from other practitioners: clear and enforceable legal procedures, without compromises regarding the legal force required for such normative acts, which must rigorously represent the legal framework applicable to the implementation of these procedures in the field of urban planning and construction.

Thus:

• GEO 31/2025 settles a thorny issue, transforming the “administrative silence” in the matter of urban planning and construction into a form of tacit approval – a solution that, by its nature and impact, would have deserved to be enshrined in a normative act of superior legal force, possibly even of the rank of an organic law.
• GEO 31/2025 brings amendments of major importance both in the legal procedures applicable to the regime for issuing the necessary notices and approvals for the adoption of territorial development and urban planning plans provided for by Law no. 350/2001, and to the regime applicable to the notices and approvals preceding the issuance of building permits provided for by Law no. 50/1991.
• GEO 31/2025 imposes maximum deadlines for the examination of documentation and for the effective issuance of notices and approvals, with or without conditions, but does not regulate the approval per se of urban planning documentation and/or the issuance of building permits.

General Terms and special terms in the field of territorial development and urban planning

Basically, public authorities and institutions that issue notices and approvals for urban and territorial planning plans are required to analyse their related documentation and issue such within a maximum 30 day-term from the submission of the request for their release by the beneficiary, with the following exceptions:

• For environmental protection: maximum 15 days from the completion of the specific evaluation procedures;
• For historical monuments: maximum 30 days from the analysis of the documentation within the specialized committees;
• For central public authorities with specialized committees: maximum 15 days from the analysis within the committee;
• For emergency inspectorates: maximum 15 days from the submission date of the documentation;
• For institutions in the defence and national security system: according to their own procedures.

The competent authorities in the field of protecting historical monuments, as well as the central ones with specialized commissions, are obliged (i) to introduce the documentation on the commissions’ agenda and (ii) to analyse such within a maximum of 30 days from the submission of the request.

Therefore, the general term of 30 days has a different purpose – term for analysing documentation and issuance (according to the new paragraph (10) of art. 56 of Law 350/2001 introduced by GEO 31/2025), or, as the case may be, term for introduction for the scope of analysis, on the commissions’ agenda provided for by the specific legislation and actual analysis within the commission (according to the new paragraph (11) of art. 56 of Law 350/2001 introduced by GEO 31/2025).

General Terms and special terms in the field of constructions authorization

Regarding the notices and approvals required in the preliminary stage to the issuance of building permits, the deadline for analysing and issuing the documentation is no more than 15 days from the submission of the beneficiary’s request, with the following exceptions:

• For environmental protection: no more than 15 days from the completion of the procedures;
• For protection of historical monuments: no more than 30 days from the analysis of the documentation within the specialized committees;
• For central public authorities with specialized committees: no more than 15 days from the analysis within the committee;
• For Romanian Civil Aeronautics Authority: no more than 30 days from the submission of the documentation.

Authorities that are obliged by law to analyse documentation within committees are required to include such on the committee’s agenda and examine them within 30 days of submitting the request.

A new order for completing documentation: a single set of observations, firm deadlines

 For frequent practical situations in which the documentation is incomplete or requires technical clarifications or modifications, GEO 31/2025 establishes that, within the legal terms of approval, the authorities are obliged to send the beneficiary, once, a single and motivated letter (technically and/or legally) containing all the requirements for completion, modification or clarification requested.

Within a maximum period of 60 days, the beneficiary must provide the revised documentation or to address technical or legal justifications for the non-acceptance of the observations. In the absence of a response within this period, the documentation is considered withdrawn.

After receiving the completions, the competent authorities are obliged, within 15 days:

• to issue the approval (with or without conditions), or
• to reject justifiably the documentation, with technical, scientific and legal arguments.

Tacit approval: when silence equals approval

In the field of urban planning and territorial development, if the authorities do not issue requests for clarification/completion/modification or do not issue the approval within the legal deadlines or do not issue a rejection letter, the documentation is considered complete and correct, and the opinion is considered tacitly granted.

Approvals issued after invoking tacit approval are ineffective.

In the field of construction authorization, if the approvals are not issued, or if requests for clarifications, completions, or modifications are not made within the legal deadlines, or if the submitted documentation is not justifiably rejected on technical and legal grounds, the documentation submitted by the project beneficiary shall be deemed complete, and the approvals shall be considered granted.

For the case the approvals are considered tacitly granted, GEO 31/2025 provides that beneficiaries may proceed with the approval procedure for urban planning documentation or with the issuance of the building permit.

Further, the specialized departments within public authorities must submit the documentation for approval or, where applicable, to issue the building permit based on:

• a proof of submission of the documentation (initial or amended), and
• a statutory statement by the beneficiary under the Form approved by Order no. 634/2025, effective as of 8 May 2025, published in the Official Gazette, Part I, no. 424 of the same date, certifying that: (i) no requests for clarifications, amendments, or additions were received; (ii) no approvals or rejection letters were issued within the legal timeframe.

This statement must be issued solely by the beneficiary (not by the investor, contractor, or any other party involved).

If this is the terminus point for recognizing the operation of tacit approval, we have not been able to find out from GEO 31/2025 or at least not in the form of a clear and explicit response.

In this context, it is also necessary to examine art. 8 of Government Emergency Ordinance no. 27/2003 on the tacit approval procedure. This article stipulates that, in cases where a request is deemed tacitly approved, the applicant is required to notify the competent public authority and to request the issuance of an official document certifying the absence of a response within the legal timeframe.

Government Emergency Ordinance No. 27/2003 establishes that (i) such documents should be issued within 5 days and would allow the activity or services to be carried out and that (ii) it can replace the authorization, including before the control bodies, except for the cases where the law expressly provides for standard authorization. In the event of unjustified refusal or silence of the authority, the applicant can use its recourse rights, according to the regulated procedure.

We therefore consider that a reflection is required on the self-statutory statement issued by the beneficiary, either as a final point, which generates legal effects per se or, on the contrary, as a preliminary step to the effective completion, requiring subsequent confirmation from the competent authority – expressly acknowledging the consistency between the declared facts and de facto situation. 

Time-based applicability of the amendments introduced by GEO 31/2025

The procedures in progress at the time of the entry into force of the GEO 31/2025 are subject to the new amendments of Law no. 350/2001. As such (i) the notices and approvals already issued remain valid; (ii) the deadlines begin to run from the date of entry into force of the ordinance for those requested but not yet issued.

Also, the amendments to Law no. 50/1991 apply to investments (i) funded from European or national funds that are in the process of approval/authorization; (ii) private investments that hold a valid urban planning certificate, but for which the authorization documentation has not been submitted.

For documentation currently undergoing the approval process, for which the required notices and agreements have not yet been obtained, the deadlines are to be calculated as new deadlines, starting from the date the normative act enters into force.