Large provincial cities in Romania such as Iasi, Timisoara or Sibiu have proofed a whole lot more transparency towards the media and the civil society than Bucharest when it comes to the law granting free access to information of public interest, according to a new report by a Romanian NGO.

The document, presented by the Romanian Academic Society ? SAR, says that while the enforcement of the law improved significantly at an official level, qualitatively results are still to be seen.

According to the report, over 97% of institutions included in the report have nominated public servants who?s task is two apply the law. And 72% of them managed to process the list of basic public information. But the situation changes dramatically when it comes to their annual activity reports as most of them are produced just for the sake of it and not to provide proper data.

The report notes the Romanian population managed to learn how to use the law and react when it is not respected by public servants.

The study was based on investigations at 500 public institutions.