What did the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NRRP) bring to the Romanian economy?
Romania received almost 11 billion euros through the NRRP, half of the total renegotiated amount.
Ştefan Stoica, 04.02.2026, 14:00
Romania’s economic growth in the period 2022-2024 would have been 1.2% lower without the National Recovery and Resilience Plan, shows a publication by the National Bank of Romania. According to it, European funds, both those related to the NRRP and those from the standard multiannual financial framework, contributed to mitigating the adverse effects of the COVID pandemic and facilitated the economic recovery. The document reveals, however, that the implementation of the NRRP was affected by delays amid the overlap with major adverse shocks, including generalized price increases generated by disruptions in global supply chains and the war in Ukraine.
Added to these were limitations regarding the administrative capacity to implement these programs. In the case of Romania, these difficulties were reflected in a slow pace of investments and reforms, which led to delays in submitting payment requests and subsequently to the renegotiation of the NRRP, the National Bank of Romania (BNR) study also shows. The authors mention that, by the end of November last year, Romania had attracted approximately half of the renegotiated NRRP allocation of 21 billion Euros. The year 2026 will be decisive for the completion of the reforms and investments financed by the National Recovery and Resilience Plan, and Romania will focus on projects that can be completed by August this year, informs the Ministry of Investments and European Projects. It acknowledges what the BNR study also found, namely that the implementation of the NRRP was marked by a series of administrative difficulties.
Among the main obstacles reported by the reform and investment coordinators are the reduced administrative capacity, the shortage of specialized personnel compared to the specifics and complexity of the investments carried out, the duration of procurement procedures compared to the limited time for the implementation of the NRRP, as well as the insufficient budget credits necessary to support the flow of project implementation. Among the problems most frequently reported by the beneficiaries of the NRRP are delays in processing transfer requests, which can lead to setbacks in the implementation of projects, coordination and communication problems between central and local authorities, as well as delays in obtaining the necessary approvals for the implementation of projects.
According to the ministry’s data, the contracted projects and those in the process of contracting amount to 100% of the European Union allocation for the 2021-2027 programs, which creates the premises for the absorption of all funds allocated to Romania through the Cohesion Policy. Within the National Recovery and Resilience Plan, Romania received a total of 10.72 billion Euros, of which 6.4 billion Euros for the non-reimbursable financial assistance component and 4.32 billion Euros for the reimbursable financial assistance component. (LS)
