Romania will submit on Friday payment request number 5 under the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR), worth €2.84 billion, which comprises 75 targets and milestones, including 21 reforms and 54 investments, Minister of Investments and European Projects Dragoș Pîslaru announced at a press conference held after the Government meeting.

‘Today I can tell you that we are ready with 75 targets and milestones, of which 21 are reforms and 54 are investments, and that we will submit payment request number 5, worth €2.84 billion, of which €1.65 billion is in grants and €433 million in loans,’ Pîslaru said.

He said that payment request number 5 is the penultimate one provided for in the final form of the PNRR, while the allocation for grants has remained at €13.57 billion.

As regards the absorption of non-reimbursable funds, the minister said that it would reach 78% after payment request number 5, up from 66% before its submission.

‘I would like to mention that, from the perspective of absorption under the PNRR, before payment request 5 we stood at 66% of the amount allocated for grants and, with payment request 5, we will reach 78% of the grant amount,’ the minister said.

After this request, Romania will reach €10.6 billion out of the total of €13.57 billion. Pîslaru stressed that, following negotiations with the European Commission, payment requests 5 and 6 had remained separate.

‘Because Romania firmly maintained the idea of decoupling request 5 from request 6, request 5 will now take us above €10 billion, to €10.6 billion, while payment request 6 cannot be larger. So, in practice, there is only this difference of €2.58 billion left to be discussed,’ he explained.

Regarding investments financed through the PNRR, the minister said that all five hospitals financed through grants would be completed, while, in the case of the A7 motorway, two sections already had acceptance reports and the document for the third was expected to be concluded before 31 August.

In the railway sector, the ‘quick wins’ projects have been ticked off in line with the renegotiation, according to the minister, while, for the railway sections renegotiated from indicators expressed in kilometres to values used for payment, Romania is on track to recover the grants.

‘Looking only at the investment portfolios, I can tell you that at this point the risks of investments not being completed are rather marginal,’ Pîslaru said.

As regards the reforms still to be completed, the minister mentioned the hydrogen law, which is currently before Parliament, and the pay law, which is in the final drafting stage. He also drew attention to the bill concerning decarbonisation. ‘That amendment must be rejected so that we do not have a problem with this final request,’ the minister added.

Source: AGERPRES