Romania is a net beneficiary of European funds, and since its accession to the present it has a surplus balance of 60 billion euro, the Minister of European Investments and Projects, Adrian Câciu, said on Tuesday, during a conference.

“Romania, from my point of view, but I think also from the Commission’s point of view, is a state that has strengthened its administrative capacity to absorb European funds, it is a net beneficiary of European funds at this moment. From accession until now, Romania has a surplus balance of 60 billion euros. So, practically, it is a net beneficiary of European funds, and this benefit is transformed, as you can see, into the development of the Romanian economy, social infrastructure and large infrastructure. I can say that we are at a crossroads, in which we benefit on the one hand from the closure of the 2014-2020 financial year, from the funds from the Recovery and Resilience Mechanism, from the PNRR, but also from the funds from the new Cohesion Policy for the 2021-2027 year. For the 2014-2020 financial year, we are already at a degree of absorption of 90% of the funds allocated to Romania under the Cohesion Policy, and from what we have at the moment, both at the level of the ministry that I coordinate, but also at the level to the European Commission, and what we will transmit by the end of the year, will lead to an absorption rate that we aim at 95 – 98%. Romania is an example from my point of view, being the fourth country, in terms of size absorption from the European Union,” said Câciu, according to Agerpres.

The minister added that there are mature projects worth almost 10 billion euro that Romania will move to the 2021-2027 financial year.

“Due to the degree of overcontracting, we are in a position to have mature projects that we will move to the 2021-2027 financial year, worth almost 10 billion euro. This means, on one hand, that the local authorities, the beneficiaries of the projects have understood how important the European funds are, they adapted very quickly and strengthened the administrative capacity, but also the governmental institutions were the ones that optimally responded to the socio-economic needs at the local or regional level. On the other hand, I can thank the European Commission for the way in which the dialogue and the need to respond to the new challenges faced by Europe and all the member states led to a flexibility of the cohesion policy measures, especially in the 2014-2020 exercise, in which answers had to be given both to the pandemic and to the energy price crisis, but also in what some supply chains mean,” the official said.