Romania could receive advance of 13 pct of PNRR this autumn

 

He participated in the video conference "Romania - development strategy", organized by the Bursa newspaper.

 

"Probably, by respecting the timelines in the regulation and meeting the respective deadlines, we will have the plan approved at the beginning of autumn, which means that from that moment we will have the first tranche of financing from this plan, an advance of 13% of what Romania proposes in relation to the 29 billion grants and loans," said Vasiliu.

 

According to him, the reasons why we are still in discussions with the European Commission are related to the fact that even the Commission changed its approach when the final form of the regulation was approved, which was different from the draft, on the basis of which the first version of the proposal for a plan was made.

 

"As there are a lot of things in Romania that everyone wants to solve through the PNRR, the negotiation process, including the internal one, was extremely laborious, quite complicated. In addition to needs, there are also conditionalities, which catch us out of phase as a member state in relation to the EU, as long as the priorities of other states are different from the basic ones of Romania, streets, motor ways, roads, infrastructure, gas supply - we still heat ourselves with wood stoves and use coal in thermal power plants, so we are not discussing at Romania's level of things that are normal and common, in our country these are still desiderata and challenges," the ministerial official continued.

 

We lag behind in education, health, the environment, he says.

 

"PNRR is an opportunity, somewhat forced for Romania, because we have the obligation to complete everything we have undertaken within a deadline which, if not respected, the same cannot be done as in the case of the classic operational programs with European funding on the principle 'how much we received is well received, then we go on with our money.' It does not go like this through the PNRR, we are obliged to assume all the targets, otherwise we do not receive any money. The opportunity comes with a coercion, and the political environment has understood this need to overcome the transition approach so far and to create a real country project for Romania's rebirth," Vasiliu underlined.