PSD MEP Victor Negrescu says that Romania can afford neither a reduced EU budget nor to sit on the sidelines.
- “The next 7 years are being negotiated now. And the stakes for Romania are huge. At a time when the national budget is under pressure, we are discussing the deficit and how to continue investments, so European funding under the future multiannual financial framework becomes all the more important.
- Romania can afford neither a reduced EU budget nor to sit on the sidelines, accepting cuts to funding for regional development, agriculture, education or healthcare.
- It must be active and influential when priorities are being set.
As vice-president of the Party of European Socialists (PES) and coordinator of the working group on the future budget of the European Union, I brought ministers, MEPs, representatives of local authorities and European institutions together around the same table.
Within the working group, we agreed on 50 concrete proposals, endorsed by the European social democratic family, in which we included important priorities for Romania: protecting funding for cohesion and local development, maintaining a strong Common Agricultural Policy, investing in education and healthcare, and supporting the economy and jobs.
After the problems we saw in drafting and implementing the PNRR, we must learn the lesson.
It is not enough to have European funding allocated. Romania must negotiate well from the outset, develop viable projects, simplify procedures, involve local authorities and the business community in a coherent manner, and build the capacity to use every euro transparently and efficiently.
As member states have to prepare a new national plan for the future multiannual financial framework, it is crucial that we avoid the mistakes made with the PNRR.
“This is my current objective at European level: to ensure that issues important to Romania are included from the outset in the priorities, rules and decisions that will shape the next seven years,” Negrescu said on Facebook.
