The launch of Romania’s Single Digital Gateway (SDG), a €23mn centralised platform designed to provide a single point of access to digital public services at national and European level, has been postponed to March, the Authority for the Digitalisation of Romania (ADR) told HotNews.

The SDG is intended to function as a unified portal for information, procedures and digital services offered by public institutions, and to be integrated into the European Union’s “Your Europe” portal, available in all official EU languages. It will replace the current Single Electronic Contact Point (PCUe), aligning Romania’s digital administration with EU regulations on the Single Digital Gateway.

The project is part of the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NRRP), under the digital transformation component, and is linked to the broader implementation of the government cloud infrastructure.

However, questions remain over the readiness of the infrastructure meant to host it, and over its readiness in general.

In an interview with Europa Liberă on January 27, Deputy Prime Minister Oana Gheorghiu said the government cloud — which should support the SDG — would be operational “this summer.”

She also referred to a future “digital wallet” that would integrate key personal documents such as ID cards, diplomas and health cards by the end of the year. Until such tools are functional, holders of new electronic ID cards face practical difficulties, as their registered address is encrypted and not visible on the physical card.

The SDGs’ rollout has already been delayed once. The initial implementation deadline was September 18, 2025, later pushed back to December before being rescheduled again for March.

Part of the scepticism surrounding the project stems from previous experience with large-scale public IT systems.

One of the platforms set to be integrated into the SDG is that of the National Trade Registry Office (ONRC), partially developed by Maguay Computers, the lead contractor for the SDG consortium. The ONRC system, delivered under a separate €38mn contract, has been plagued by technical failures and is currently under investigation by anti-corruption prosecutors.

Investigative reporting by OCCRP member centre Public Record revealed major irregularities in the implementation of the ONRC platform. Draft audits by the National Court of Auditors and the Justice Ministry reportedly found that the system was launched before adequate testing, that the agency never received the source code, and that security and functionality checks were incomplete. Estimated losses of over RON12mn (around €2.4mn) were cited due to penalties not being enforced for delays and faulty testing.

Most of the RON189mn allocated to the ONRC platform went to Vodafone Romania, Maguay Computers and Total Soft, according to Public Record. The investigation also found that programmers were still working on the software even after its formal reception had been signed off by Vodafone and ONRC.

Against this backdrop, expectations for the smooth deployment of the SDG remain cautious. While the portal is meant to centralise existing functional services and host new digital services for institutions currently lacking online capabilities, past disruptions in comparable systems have tempered confidence in ambitious timelines.

The SDG contract, worth RON96mn excluding VAT, was signed in March 2024 by then Digitalisation Minister Bogdan Ivan with a consortium led by Maguay Computers. Whether the March deadline will hold may depend less on formal announcements and more on the stability of the underlying infrastructure — and on the lessons drawn from earlier digital setbacks.