The Foundation For The Defense Of Citizens Against State Abuses (FACIAS) warns of delays in the implementation of Romania's National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NRRP), which risks depriving the country of access to billions of euros essential for the country's development in the coming period.
According to the reply received by FACIAS from the Ministry of European Investment and Projects, Romania is facing significant difficulties in obtaining approval for the third payment request under the NRRP, totalling €2,669,705,062, with the deadline for evaluation set out in the regulation expiring on 15 February without a favourable outcome. The European Commission requested further clarifications from Romania in two letters, as it had suspicions about the proper fulfilment of the necessary milestones for the release of payments. These questions mainly concern the areas of energy, tax and pension reform, and good governance, under the responsibility of the Ministry of Energy, the Ministry of Finance and the General Government Secretary.
Only half of the reforms have been achieved
FACIAS found out that there are also huge delays in the implementation of milestones for the fourth payment claim. Of the 46 milestones and targets set for implementation since the first part of 2023, 20 of them have still not been met today. In order for Romania to submit the 4th payment application, it is necessary first to approve the 3rd payment application.
The NRRP is the backbone of Romania's development efforts for the coming period, because we are talking about billions of euros of European money, but the delays in its implementation threaten to cancel out the expected benefits.
FACIAS calls on the Romanian authorities to assume their responsibility and take the necessary steps to speed up the implementation of the NRRP, thus avoiding the risk of losing the billions of euros allocated by the European Union for the country's recovery.