European Funds for Romania
Corina Cristea, 19.12.2017, 14:02
In 2018, Romanian authorities intend to attract at least 6.3 billion Euros worth of European funds, money which is going to be channeled mainly into education, healthcare, infrastructure and agriculture. A number of contracts funded from European money, under which investments will be made worth more than 280 million Euros, were signed on Monday at the Government headquarters in the presence of the European Commissioner for Regional Policy Corina Creţu. These are 18 financing agreements applied on two priority axes, for the rehabilitation and modernization of several county roads, of the water and waste water infrastructure, for energy efficiency and the thermal insulation of blocks of flats.
The European Commissioner believes that Bucharest is on the right path, but draws attention to the fact that it is important for Romania to keep its economic growth pace, to have more political stability and to avoid complicating the procedures related to European projects. Corina Creţu pointed out that most countries send their applications online, in electronic format, and Romania should follow their example. From this point of view, cutting down on red tape would be an absolute priority.
Mrs. Creţu added that more than 60% of public investments in Romania are made from European funds:
“Over 55,000 jobs have been created and more than 5,000 small and medium sized enterprises have received support. Actually, the Competitiveness Operational Program was fully implemented. For the 2014-2020 time-frame, we have 7 times more applications for supporting SMEs than the allocated amount would cover. Also, around 900 new research and development labs have been set up and 40,000 households have benefited from energy efficiency measures. The projects supported through the cohesion policy programmes could really make a difference in peoples daily lives. As regards the current programming period, important progress has been reported over the past months, the selection of projects has been accelerated and almost 4.3 billion Euros have already reached Romania, out of all the six European funds, advance payments included.”
Eight projects developed with European money in the fields of tourism, professional training, fisheries and agriculture have received awards in the presence of the European Commissioner Corina Creţu.
(Translated by Lacramioara Simion)
