The Ministry of European Investments and Projects (MIPE), through the Management Authority for the Large Infrastructure Operational Programme (AM POIM) sent to the Certification and Payment Authority, within the Ministry of Finance, for certification and reimbursement, an expense statement worth 1.04 billion RON, the equivalent of 210.59 million EUR, according to Agerpres.

According to a MIPE release, in 2022, the AM POIM sent for settlement to the European Commission amounts worth over 2 billion EUR, 2,004,479,336 EUR, respectively, exceeding the target provided for in the memorandum by 372,836,988 EUR.

„This year, we have adopted a set of measures to prevent a possible massive loss of money which we anticipated and, day by day, we are seeing the positive effects. This year we managed to save every Euro we had available. Simplification, de-bureaucratization and digitization are the desiderata which we pursue not only at the level of accessing European funds, but also at the level of project implementation. The recent measures, promoted at the level of the Ministry of European Investments and Projects, help us to strengthen the management of European funds and we shall truly see their effects in the upcoming programming period,” Minister Marcel Bolos said.

Currently, the absorption rate for the POIM is 75.35 percent at the level of declared expenditures.

„So far, for the projects carried out within this operational programme, the European Commission reimbursed Romania 5.83 billion EUR (7.13 billion EUR with pre-financing), out of the total of 6.83 billion EUR sent for settlement. The amounts represent eligible expenses made from European funds within the framework of the projects carried out through the Large Infrastructure Operational Programme,” Secretary of State with the MIPE Carmen Moraru stated.

On 16 November 2022, another expense statement for the reimbursement of 236.32 million EUR was sent to the Commission.

In respect to the execution of the 2014-2020 Multiannual Financial Framework, until this date, the amounts received from the European Commission, representing pre-financing and repayments, related to the programmes financed from the European structural and investment funds – ESIF (Large Infrastructure Operational Programme, Competitiveness Operational Programme, Regional Operational Programme, Administrative Capacity Operational Programme, Technical Assistance Operational Programme, Human Capital Operational Programme, Rural Development National Programme, Fisheries and Maritime Affairs Operational Programme) and from the Fund for European Aid to the Most Deprived – FEAD (Operational Programme Aid to Disadvantaged Persons) stands at approximately 25.4 billion EUR (5.4 billion EUR in 2022), which represents almost 71 percent of the EU allocation related to these programmes.

In 2022, in terms of the total number of contracts signed with the beneficiaries, a progress of 2,171 financing contracts was registered, with a total value of around 3.6 billion EUR.

Also, the progress recorded in 2022 in terms of total payments made to beneficiaries is approximately 5.2 billion EUR.

„From the analysis of the communicated payment estimates, it results that for the management authorities within the MIPE, the forecasted amounts cover the necessary expenditure declarations to be sent to the European Commission in 2022, in order to avoid the disengagement of European funds,” the MIPE stated.

Agerpres