European Assessment on Romania
Romania is about to receive a new installment of roughly 3 billion Euros from the money stipulated in its National Plan of Recovery and Resilience also known as PNRR
Ştefan Stoica, 28.06.2023, 14:00
The European Commission has
positively assessed the second payment request submitted by Romania within the
National Plan of Recovery and Resilience, PNRR, with a value of 3.22 billion
Euros, after the country fulfilled 49 out of the 51 milestones and targets in
the aforementioned plan. As for the two pending objectives, concerning
investment in energy, Romania has failed the exam, which prompted the European
Commission to activate the procedure of suspending payment for the related activities.
For this reason Romania will receive 53.36 million Euros less as part of the
PNRR assistance component, but still has 6 months left to bring evidence that
it has properly met the aforementioned objectives.
This procedure gives Member States
time to fulfill the outstanding milestones while receiving a partial payment
linked to the milestones and targets than have been satisfactory fulfilled.
The country’s new Prime Minister,
Marcel Ciolacu says the present assessment is encouraging the government to
carry on the process of meeting all the milestones and targets. He pledges the
two outstanding milestones will be fulfilled shortly, so that Romania may get
all the money allotted. Ciolacu’s predecessor, Nicolae Ciuca says the European
money will essentially contribute to the modernization of Romania in all key
domains, mainly infrastructure as well as the medical and educational systems.
The president of the European
Commission Ursula von der Leyen says that ‘Romania has progressed well in the
implementation of its recovery and resilience plan, for instance carrying out
reforms on road safety, renewable energy and public sector cloud services.
Romania has also been taking important steps to fight undeclared work and
invest in 5G networks. Now, we encourage Romania to speed up its work within
the next six months on the two milestones related to energy investments that
are not yet fulfilled. We encourage all Member States, including Romania, to
proceed swiftly with the implementation of their recovery and resilience
plans.’
Out of the 3.22 billion Euros,
roughly two thirds are non-reimbursable, while one third is loaned. The first
payment request was reimbursed to Romania in October 2022, when the country
received 2.6 billion Euros out of which 1.8 billion in grants and 0.8 in loans.
Romania benefits from 29 billion Euros allotted to its PNRR, half grants and
half loans. For this implementation of its National Plan of Recovery and
Resilience, Romania has already received two-pre-funding installments of
roughly 3.79 billion Euros.
(bill)
