Romania will officially submit its revised National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR) to the European Commission system on Friday, after which the document will undergo the approval procedure by the Commission, Investment and European Projects Minister Dragos Pislaru said.
„Tomorrow, the plan is for Romania to officially submit what is called the Article 21 notification regarding the PNRR and, based on the pre-agreement we had, the memorandum adopted by the Government, and the latest discussions we had for the formal procedural part, we will submit it officially. We will upload the revised PNRR to the European Commission system, after which we will first receive approval from the Commission and then from the Council,” Dragos Pislaru announced on Thursday during a press conference at Victoria Palace.
The minister was asked about a statement made by President Nicusor Dan, who referred to the PNRR as „a partial failure.”
„I saw his statement. I believe he highlighted a very positive aspect, namely that on the non-reimbursable funding side, through the revision and all the measures we have taken, I don’t think we will lose money. To put it another way, you know how it is with a glass half full, half empty you can focus on the full part or the empty part. The full part is that we have a plan, we know which projects we have, and we are focusing on them, with funding available for implementation. To clarify, in the public space until now, discussions have focused on a few highways, a few hospitals. In reality, we are talking about around 17,000 projects spread across the country, some already completed, which effectively turn the PNRR in the coming year into a major exercise for our community and society,” Pîslaru explained.
He expressed hope that this exercise will unite society.
„This is an exercise that, both the Government and I hope, will bring the entire society together to show not only what is not being done but especially what is being accomplished when a society is mobilized and a responsible government manages the situation. At the same time, I can say that the half-empty side of the glass refers to the fact that transparency, predictability, allocation of funds, and the start of actual works should have happened five years ago. I think Mr. president made a very clear point that if we had started earlier, we would not now have to rush at the end. It will be an extremely intense year. We will need to be inventive and able to allocate two to three times more resources to implement these projects. But once we know, project by project, what we are discussing and everyone in Romania will know too my expectation is that there will be collective pressure and national mobilization to ensure these projects that modernize Romania actually happen,” Pislaru added.
AGERPRES
