| Established in 1998, the Romanian National Council for Refugees (CNRR) is a non-governmental organisation whose main goal is to protect the rights of asylum seekers, refugees and other migrants. The CNRR has been part of cross-border co-operation activities since 2002, after holding jointly with the Romanian National Refugee Office a meeting in Suceava.
At the national level, the CNNR is a main UNHCR implementing partner in Romania and runs a number of programmes for asylum seekers and refugees. The programmes are focused on three areas: legal assistance that includes legal counselling at border points and in open and closed centres, legal representation of asylum seekers in courts, interpretation services during the refugee status determination procedure, country of origin information research, translation and dissemination; social assistance that includes social counselling, cultural orientation and Romanian language sessions, a small-scale project on integration of refugees in rural/semi-rural areas; basic medical assistance to asylum seekers and refugees.
In co-operation with Bucharest University, the CNRR runs social and legal clinics and facilitates communication of students and volunteers with governmental agencies in charge of asylum and migration issues through “The Summer School on Integrated Assistance to Refugees”.
At the international level, the CNRR is a member of the European Council on Refugees and Exile (ECRE) and takes an active part in its activities. The CNRR also carries out a number of projects with other international institutions, i.e. with the EC Socrates Programme – a project on cross-cultural communication among asylum seekers from different backgrounds, and with the Open Society Foundation – a number of projects targeted at trans-national and cross-border co-operation between Romania, Hungary, Ukraine, Moldova, Bulgaria and some other countries. | 
