Digitisation in Romania accelerates during the pandemic
Digitisation in Romania accelerates during the pandemic

Author(s): Kamil Całus
Subject(s): Public Administration, Government/Political systems, Security and defense, Health and medicine and law, Social Informatics, ICT Information and Communications Technologies
Published by: OSW Ośrodek Studiów Wschodnich im. Marka Karpia
Keywords: Digitisation in Romania; COVID-19 pandemic; public’s limited digital competences; e-government sector; e-commerce; Cybersecurity;
Summary/Abstract: Romania stands out as having one of the EU’s least developed systems of online public services, which contrasts with its extensive telecommunications infrastructure offering very fast and cheap access to the network. This is due both to the policy of the governments, which until 2019 did not show much interest in the digitisation process of the country or failed to propose a comprehensive programme for its implementation, and to the resistance of the public, who were distrustful of the e-government solutions offered. However, the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic led to a breakthrough: on one hand, it spurred the authorities to introduce legal changes and deploy new technological solutions that had hitherto been postponed, and on the other, it forced Romanian society to use public digital services.

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