Romania must prioritise the completion of mature projects financed under its National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR), in order to fully capitalise on the available non-repayable funds, MEP Siegfried Muresan, vice-president of the European People’s Party (EPP), said on Tuesday.
„At the moment, Romania is in the situation of having received the pre-financing and three instalments through the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF). There is only one EU member state that has received six instalments , Italy, there are three states that have received five – Portugal, Greece and Croatia – a few states that have received four, a few states like us, which have received three tranches. The rest are lagging behind. In short, Romania ranks approximately in the middle of the ranking of member states. We are not among the first countries, but we are far from the last. It is clear that non-repayable funds are a greater help to Romania, because they are money that we never have to repay. As such, the priority for Romania must be that the half of the PNRR that are non-repayable funds be fully approved. My recommendation to the authorities is that all mature projects, which we know for sure will be completed by the deadline of August 31, 2026, should be financed under the grant component to make sure that we access all the funds we are entitled to under the non-repayable funds component. The government’s priority must now be to accelerate implementation,” Murean told AGERPRES.
He added that delays similar to Romania’s have been recorded in other European countries, due to the complexity of the mechanism, which conditions investments on the implementation of reforms, but the beneficiaries should accelerate the implementation of the projects because, although an extension of the implementation period will be attempted, there is no guarantee in this regard.
„RRF was a new, unique instrument, created at the beginning of the pandemic, for a limited duration, six years, which took time in all European Union member states. There have been delays in many states at the level of the European Union regarding the implementation of this new mechanism, which conditions investment on reforms. Half of the funds are non-repayable, half are loans on advantageous terms. (…) The mechanism is in force until August 31, 2026. We will try to find maybe an extension of it by a few months, maybe a year. But it is not guaranteed and is not the letter of the law. At the moment, the law says that the instrument ends on August 31, 2026. As such, all beneficiaries must accelerate the implementation of projects.”
The MEP also said that in recent years Romania has developed on European funds, which led to an increase in the average level of income by four times compared to the moment of accession.
„Since Romania became a member of the European Union, the average level of income and GDP per capita have increased nine times. After we lower the inflation rate, the real growth is four times, so today, in Romania, people can afford four times more things than they could afford at the time of joining the EU. Despite the difficulties, the standard of living in Romania, on average, has increased, Romania has developed. And this can also be seen at the European level. European funds have fundamentally changed the face of Oradea, for example, but the situation is similar in Alba Iulia, Cluj, Bacau, Timisoara and in the local communities that have been developed on European funds,” said Muresan.
Muresan on Tuesday attended a convention in Valencia, Spain, of the Congress of the EPP that was scheduled to elect the party’s leadership, with him running for re-election.
AGERPRES
