Romania’s REPowerEU plan has not been rejected, but is in the informal consultation phase, the European Commission asking for additional information about the investments we want to have in the new chapter, the documents to be submitted after a consensus is reached, said on Friday the Minister of Investments and European Projects, Marcel Boloş, on his Facebook page.
“How could the European Commission reject a plan that hasn’t been submitted yet? It’s true that political life, especially on the threshold of election campaigns, can sometimes push you to engage as much as possible ‘sincerely’, but you still have to consider that jeopardizing Romania’s strategic interests is by no means a virtue. The situation with Romania’s REPowerEU plan is as follows: The plan has not been rejected. We are in the informal consultation phase, the European Commission is asking us for additional information about the investments we want we are moving into the new chapter, and only when we reach a consensus will we submit the documents,” Boloş explains, according to Agerpres.
According to him, Romania, based on the 1.4 billion euros it receives, aims to ensure the resilience of the energy system, by increasing the share of electricity production from renewable sources (solar and hydropower).
“Regulation (EU) 2023/435 on the REPowerEU chapters says clearly: Member States can submit to the European Commission the new chapters to the Recovery and Resilience Plans starting from March 1, 2023. The European Commission has recommended that the Member States submit proposals to amend the plans, including the new chapter, until the end of April 2023 and no later than August 31, 2023, which is the legal deadline for submitting a modified plan as a result of requesting a loan application,” explains Boloş.
In this sense, between March 17 and 26, 2023, the Ministry of European Investments and Projects (MIPE) launched the public consultation process for the transmission of reform and investment proposals for the new REPowerEU chapter by interested actors.
Later, on March 24, a public session took place, attended by representatives of associative structures, local and regional authorities, civil society, organizations with relevant expertise in the field, as well as interested actors from the agricultural sector.
“Now, we are in a constructive dialogue with the representatives of the European Commission, whom I thank for this. On Monday I will go to Brussels with the team and, based on the mandate received by the Government, we will discuss with the experts there. This is the reality. REPowerEU is a new instrument, approved only in April 2023, and Romania, like all the member states, is working on a form that represents its strategic interests as faithfully as possible. Moreover, as Siegfried Mureşan very well pointed out, only two countries have submitted the plan so far. And if we continue the discussions with the EC on the same note, we have every chance to count ourselves among the leading states that do this,” the head of MIPE also noted.
MEP Dragoş Pîslaru announced, on Thursday evening, on Facebook, that Romania’s REPowerEU plan, worth 1.4 billion euros, was rejected by the European Commission.
“The European Commission rejects the Romanian Government’s attempt to direct 1 billion euros to the political clientele of the PSD-PNL. In a total lack of transparency and quickly, the Government requested funding for projects coming from the party line, such as: ineffective investments on lakes located in PSD-PNL fiefdoms in Oltenia or on irrigation canals in Brăila to serve local clientele or investments of state-owned companies, including those that have been unfairly exempted from environmental impact. In response, the European Commission rejected these political proposals of the Government for RePowerEU and approved only the investments related to energy efficiency and which help households and entrepreneurs to reduce their bills – i.e. exactly what I submitted together with the REPER Party as solutions,” claimed Pîslaru.