Romania has a not-so-happy history in terms of usage of European funds and, given the amount we have obtained in the negotiation process, we must turn our engines up on the capacity to implement projects, said the Minister of European Funds, Marcel Boloş.
“The historical chance we have has this great challenge, namely that we have to speed up our engines, those related to the implementation capacity, because Romania has a not very happy history in terms of absorbing European funds. The Orban government is the one that, for the first time in the history of European funds, started the negotiation process with the European Commission before the start of the 2021-2027 programming period. On the one hand we have the negotiation process with the European Commission and on the other hand we have this challenge related to the implementation capacity, for which in this period we are thinking of measures to consolidate it and to be able to face as well as possible the great challenge of absorption of the entire budget,” Boloş explained at Digi 24.
He stressed that it is premature to advance, for the time being, amounts on segments from European funds of 80 billion euros obtained by Romania from the European Commission, but specified that investments in infrastructure, health and education remain a priority, according to Agerpres.
“This amount (80 billion euro) is a historic amount that Romania obtained in the negotiation process, thanks to the efforts made by President Klaus Iohannis. Regarding the distribution of these amounts on objectives of investments that we have in mind, at the moment I think it is quite premature to advance amounts on investment areas that we are going to support. It is certain that the investments in the field of transport infrastructure remain a priority for Romania, investments are still to be done especially with regard to the restoration of the irrigation system, because it is an opportunity we have at the moment to increase the resilience capacity. (…) Also, two large public services have the chance to make important investments, and I speak here about the field of health and education, which are public services of national strategic importance, and, of course, in the field of investment pursued by the EC, , the one related to digitalization,” the Minister of European Funds also said.