Always keeping a watch on new developments at the international level and recognizing the negative effects of persistent organic pollutants, Romania decided to take action and ratified the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants on 28 October 2004, by adopting Law 261/2004. After the ratification, the next obvious step was the development of the National Implementation Plan (NIP). In developing this document, Romania requested the financial assistance from the GEF and technical assistance from UNIDO. From 2004-2006, the National Research and Development Institute for Environment Protection–ICIM Bucharest, acting as an executing agency, went through all of the NIP’s development phases and in April 2006 the NIP was sent to the Secretariat of the Stockholm Convention. It was approved by Government Decision no. 1497/2008.