The app will be released in 2024 and is expected to be operational in at least a thousand town halls in Romania

Romania's Minister of Research, Innovation and Digitization, Bogdan-Gruia Ivan, has announced the launch of an app that will facilitate citizens' interaction with local government through the use of standardized forms, which is planned to be implemented next year, according to Digi24.

In a press statement, the minister expressed his wish that this platform will be operational in at least 1,000 town halls across the country by 2024.

Bogdan-Gruia Ivan stressed that Romania faces a "very big challenge" to achieve in four to five years what other countries have done in 20 years. With financial resources of €6 billion from the NRRP, the minister stressed that the country is ready for these steps.

"We have unlocked Romania's most important digitization project, namely the government cloud, which we will launch for public procurement, I hope, by the end of the year. And next year we hope to have, if there are no challenges, this cloud architecture already in place, at least partially", the minister explained at the Palace of Parliament.

In addition to the application that will allow citizens to interact online with the administration, the Ministry is working on the National Plan for the Digitization of Local Public Administration, offering digital vouchers to each municipality for the modernization of public services for citizens in digital format. The value of a digital voucher will be between €5,000 and €10,000.

The Minister stressed that the aim is to create a single place for citizens to interact with the state, with access 24 hours a day, seven days a week, from home. He described the vision of the project as a single application of the Romanian state, where citizens will be able to pay taxes, renew their identity documents and submit applications, while the local administration will have access to standardized forms, facilitating the application management process.

This digitization project aims to streamline interaction between citizens and the local public administration, simplifying procedures and reducing bureaucracy.