On June 21, 2005, ECNL participated in a roundtable seminar "Legal regulation of the public benefit status in Romania", attended by over 50 NGOs and organized by CSDF Romania. Inspired by the workshop held in February by ECNL, a group of Romanian NGOs decided to follow up by developing new legislation on the public benefit organization (PBO) status in Romania. This new law should replace current, inadequate provisions of Government Ordinance #26.
To help think through the issues of a new law, CSDF translated and distributed ICNL's Model PBO Provisions (available in English at www.icnl.org). They also solicited comments from the NGOs and more than 40 written comments were submitted and presented at the Roundtable. The main issues discussed included the defintion of a PBO, list of public benefit activities, charity commission versus other decision-making mechanisms, benefits and obligations for PBOs.