ANCOM submits to public consultation all the draft decisions that may have a significant impact on the electronic communications market. The Authority makes publicly available the measures to be adopted by means of the Action Plan launched for consultation with the industry, every year. Following the consultation procedure, ANCOM must publish the action plan for the respective year, which contains, as the case may be, the titles of the draft decisions to be launched for public consultation over the whole year.
The objectives provided in the action plan shall take into account the political strategy in the field, as well as the recommendations received from the industry.
The plan shall be as flexible as possible and shall be updated according to the market trends.
Public Consultation
I. ANCOM will publish the text subject to consultation on its own website, in Word and/or PDF format, also specifying:
- the contact person;
- the code of the document subject to consultation;
- the date of publication of the document;the date of the last modification;
- the date of the conclusion of the public consultation process;
- the status of the document subject to consultation;
- the expected action.
II. For the efficiency of the consultation procedure, each document subject to public consultation will be announced to the public by the following means:
- The Public Relations Department of ANCOM (DRP) will draft an informative text that will state the title of the document subject to consultation, the reasons that were the basis for the elaboration of the draft decision, the address of the website where the text can be consulted, the deadline for submitting observations, the contact details, as well as the communication channels through which observations can be transmitted to ANCOM; this information is sent in the form of a press release to media representatives and to interested persons who have requested the inclusion of their email address on the specially established ANCOM mailing list.;
- DRP will announce the opening of the public consultation process on the front page of the institution’s website;
- DRP will draft an information note on the public consultation and post it on the institution’s noticeboard;
These steps will be taken on the date of publication of the document for consultation or within a maximum of 2 working days from the launch of the consultation.
III. The deadline for sending observations and recommendations on the projects subject to public consultation is at least 30 calendar days from the date of publication of the document on the ANCOM website. In situations where the adoption of the measure is required in an emergency regime and this is justified in the statement of reasons, the deadline may be shorter than 30 days, but not shorter than 10 days.
When calculating the deadline, the first day of consultation is excluded and the last day is included. Any interested person may submit observations and recommendations on projects subject to public consultation, by mail, directly to the ANCOM registry, through the online Registry, fax, e-mail or through the Authority’s regional departments. DRP keeps records in electronic format of all observations/recommendations received from respondents and distributes these observations to the initiating department.
Since there is a possibility that all observations received will be made public on the website, in the form transmitted, ANCOM will inform about this at the initiation of the public consultation process. In case respondents mark some observations as trade secrets within the meaning of the law, the information they consider as such from the documents they transmit to ANCOM, within the consultation process, may be removed from the documents/information that are made public. It is not allowed to mark as trade secrets general opinions transmitted during the public consultation process. ANCOM informs respondents to limit, as far as possible, the passages that may be subject to protection as a trade secret. ANCOM reserves the right to downgrade, ex officio, information elements that, by their nature, do not reveal trade secrets.
IV. Each document submitted for consultation will be accompanied by an explanatory statement that will be published on the ANCOM website together with the respective document.
The Consultative Council
V. ANCOM’s Consultative Council is the forum that brings together representatives of ANCOM, other state institutions, companies in the field, users of electronic communications services and postal services and civil society regarding the projects submitted for consultation.
After being submitted to public consultation via the ANCOM website and then amended with the observations and suggestions coming from the dialogue partners, the draft regulations will be subject to a final discussion in the Consultative Council.
Although the debates of the Consultative Council are not public, the minutes, agenda and other documents of each meeting will be published on the ANCOM website, as a rule, at least 7 days, but not less than 5, before the date on which the meeting will take place.
The minutes of the Consultative Council meetings will be recorded, archived and made public via the ANCOM website.
VI. Annually, DRP prepares an annual report on decision-making transparency for the previous year, which will contain the following information:
- number of projects subject to public consultation, of which:
- number of proposals with a normative character;
- number of projects that were not normative;
- number of public meetings;
- number of meetings that were not public and the motivation for restricting access;
- number of Consultative Council meetings;
- number of draft measures adopted during the consultation;
- number of draft measures adopted in the emergency procedure;
- total number of recommendations received during the consultation;
- total number of recommendations included in the projects subject to consultation;
- total number of participants in public meetings;
- total number of participants in Consultative Council meetings;
- total number/average number of observations and recommendations expressed during public meetings (to the extent that they can be quantified);
- the total/average number of observations and recommendations expressed during the meetings of the Consultative Council (to the extent that it is possible to quantify them);
- the total/average number of observations and recommendations from the previous point included in the decisions taken (to the extent that it is possible to quantify them);
- the total/average number of observations and recommendations expressed during the meetings of the Consultative Council included in the decisions taken (to the extent that it is possible to quantify them);
- the situation of cases in which ANCOM was taken to court for failure to comply with the provisions of Law 52/2003;
- its own assessment of the partnership with citizens and their legally constituted associations.