Romania has begun the final renegotiation of the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR), so that it can fully collect the 4.9 billion euros remaining on the grant component, by prioritizing projects that have been completed or are in an advanced stage of implementation, Dragoș Pîslaru said on Thursday, after the Government meeting.
According to him, Romania has sent the European Commission a first draft regarding the amendments to the PNRR, with negotiations set to be completed by May 31.
“The second thing I want to talk to you about is the briefings we had in the Government today (Thursday, editor’s note) regarding the PNRR. The first briefing is about how the PNRR is being closed. The European Commission produced a guide that it distributed to the member states on May 5. I informed the ministers in the Government about these final measures. I mentioned that we are entering a process of final renegotiation of the PNRR, which we started a few weeks ago, so that we can be sure that, for the 4.9 billion euros per grant that we still have to collect, we have the investment projects completed and can collect the money related to them in full. This will involve some movements from the loan area to the grant area, as was done in the summer on a much larger scale. This time it will be a more surgical measure through which we ensure that all the projects that are completed or that are almost ready, for which we have certainties, will allow us to cover the amount of grants. Deadline for these negotiations is May 31, so we have two weeks to negotiate these aspects with the European Commission. Late last night, according to the agreement reached with the European Commission, we sent a first draft regarding these changes, and next week we will explain and negotiate them”, mentioned Dragoș Pîslaru, according to Agerpres.
He expressed his confidence that Romania has enough projects to fully access the non-reimbursable funds.
“On May 22, I believe that a physical meeting will take place in Brussels and then, the time remaining until May 31, will be just right to reach a final version on the investment side. I am discussing with quite a lot of confidence that we have projects that are sufficient for us to be able to access the entire non-reimbursable funds”, added the dignitary.
He also expressed confidence that a large part of the amount related to loans will be attracted, all the projects being already included in the budget.
“On the loans side, things are currently such that here too we are confident that we can withdraw the largest part of the amount. Regarding loans, one thing is very clear: all projects are already included in the budget. In the worst case, if any amount were to be lost from the loans side, it would only be the difference in interest between the PNRR and the loans that the Ministry of Finance is currently borrowing with, but the assumption we are starting from, and we have some scenarios on the table here, is that we are not losing money on the loans side either. And this is what we have sent to the European Commission and is our negotiating position,” said Pîslaru.
The minister stressed, however, that in order to be able to collect the investment money, certain reforms must be made and in this regard there are nine normative acts at the law level that will have to be adopted in Parliament.
“On the reform side, it is very important to mention that we have long started identifying key reforms and legislative priorities and throughout this period, despite the political turbulence, the Government has acted to prepare and accelerate these projects. We have nine normative acts at the law level that we somehow have to adopt in Parliament. At this moment, I can tell you that three are ready. It’s about those lands for investments, it’s about the consolidated Law on integrity at ANI, it’s about the Law on digitalization in the field of research. They are ready, they are in Parliament or they are ready to go to Parliament. Another one is already in Parliament, the Urban Code, so four are practically ready. On the ANAF reform, on the malus/bonus incentive structure for ANAF officials, we are waiting for feedback from the Commission, so this is also ready, the 5th one,” explained Dragoș Pîslaru.