The way forward regarding the National Recovery and Resilience Plan milestone on the corporate governance of energy sector companies will be finalised with the European Commission, during a visit that its representatives will carry out on February 10-14, said European Investment and Projects Minister Marcel Bolos in an interview with AGERPRES.

„We have had and still have 300 million EUR suspended for what corporate governance in the energy sector means. Here we are talking about at least three important companies: Hidroelectrica, Nuclearelectrica and Romgaz, for which we will finalise with the European Commission, which will visit on February 10-14, the way to move forward on the achievement of the milestone, either by resuming the procedures at these companies or by replacing some members of the Board of Directors, in order to prove that the milestone has been met,” Bolos explained.

He emphasized that in the mandate contracts concluded with directors and company managers there are termination clauses, which are conditional on the payment of compensatory salaries.

„If the conclusion of these contracts was based on a flaw, which turns out to be a flaw resulting from the Commission’s letter suspending funds, then I consider that there are sufficient arguments for these contracts to be terminated. Obviously, if there is provision for the payment of compensatory salaries, that payment should be made. But it is totally unnatural to have a huge cost for such a milestone – we are talking about 300 million EUR – for an extremely childish reason: we did not respect a procedure for selecting managers and in this way we lose a lot of money. Let’s not forget that there are tougher reforms to come in the National Recovery and Resilience Plan, and if we are stumbling over administrative procedures that are not normal for their implementation, what are we going to do when the milestones for reforms are much more complex and much more costly in terms of budget?,” the minister of European Investments and Projects added.

The European Commission approved on October 15 a positive preliminary assessment of the six targets and 62 of the 68 milestones related to Romania’s third payment request for 2 billion EUR (without pre-financing) under the Recovery and Resilience Facility, the central element of the NextGenerationE program.

The Commission found that, at that stage, six milestones had not been reached, namely reforms in the governance of state-owned enterprises, as well as transport investment and a reform of the tax regime for micro-enterprises (M8.R4/M206).

The Commission has therefore proposed the partial suspension of payments in accordance with Article 24(6) of the RRF Regulation. This gives Member States additional time to meet the outstanding milestones or targets, while they receive a partial payment linked to the milestones and targets that have been satisfactorily met.

AGERPRES