About Us
Funeral Services Association. Since 2020
The Funeral Services Association was established based on the free consent and will expressed by 20 authorized funeral services providers who in February 2020 decided that it is time for the funeral services entrepreneurs to protect their investments, employees and their own work by means of this professional organization.
Our vision
All the preliminary and punctual discussions from our first meeting were based on two ideas: complying with the law and the respect given to the families in distress.
History
The organization started its journey under extremely difficult conditions caused both by the state of emergency declared shortly after our first meeting and by location of our founding members, who are practically spread across the country, which made it difficult to send the articles of incorporation from one to the other, but especially submitting them to the Registry of the Cluj-Napoca Court House. However, in June 2020 we managed to submit the Memorandum, the Articles of Incorporation and all the documents necessary for registration – the association is composed of legal entities, as previously mentioned, funeral services providers authorized by the Public Health District Authorities.
On 26.06.2020 our association was registered in the Register of Associations and Foundations at the Registry of the Cluj-Napoca Court House under number 1184/12A. As a result and in compliance with the provisions of O.U.G. 26/2000, we decided to organize the first General Assembly meeting of our members in Brasov (the place where the first meeting took place). In the meantime, especially due to the popularity of the Association’s purpose, a number of 30 new members wanted to join, which led to a total number of members of 50 legal persons today, 29.10.2020.
From the very beginning, we would like to point out the following: we distinguish ourselves from other associations or foundations whose field of activity is the provision of funeral services by the fact that all our associate members strictly comply with the legislation in the field, namely Law 102/2014 and H.G. 741/2016, and they all went through the authorization procedure according to the provisions of the law and the decision above. In other words, compliance with the law is placed above everything and is represents the basic condition for accepting applications to become a member of the Association.
The declared purpose of the Funeral Services Association is to represent at a national level the interests of its members providing funeral services, to harmonize the Romanian legislation and to establish common funds to achieve this goal. We intend to achieve our goal by means of good practices addressed to both families in difficult situation caused by the death of a relative as well as the deceased that is in the custody of the funeral services company.
In order to achieve our goal, we will only accept authorized funeral services providers and by means of specific actions and together with the competent state authorities we are trying to achieve the uniform compliance with the law countrywide.
From the beginning, there has been an open dialogue with the European Federation of Funeral Services (E.F.F.S.) and we’ve benefited from the support of this powerful organization throughout all of our actions. We have periodically presented briefs showing the situation of our association, this currently enabling a permanent dialogue with the representatives of the European Federation.
What do we want?
– we want a unified practice nationwide, especially from the Public Health Authorities, including a computerization of their activation, a fact that would save us time and having to travel, which could make for superior quality services offered to families
– we want the amendment of the provisions of the law and of the government resolution that are inconsistent or are no longer opportune in connection to the everyday practice
– we want to create a professional body by means of this Funeral Services Association that can be consulted in funeral matters due to the special experience of the association’s members (some of the association’s members have over 30 years of experience within the field)
Our mission
We thus want to create a professional body of funeral services providers and organizations and raise the standards and quality of the activity within the field as close to or equal to European standards. We intend to develop an Ethical Code regarding the operating mode of companies providing funeral services and to implement this Ethical Code nationwide as a Charter of Good Practices.
We will continue what we have already started, namely continuously lobbying by drafting up programs and specific proposals as a part of our relationship with the European Federation of Funeral Services. We show our availability to provide consultancy at any time both for the public as well as for the authorities in accordance with our personal experience and expertise, as we already have a forum for sharing ideas and experience.
We will try to develop a set of knowledge with regard to the best quality practices addressed to the deceased in terms of thanatopraxis or embalming. We show our openness to collaborate with other federations and associations as long as the main goal is the compliance with the legal provisions.
