Romania is the only member state still sending projects with thousands of signed printed pages, although Brussels encourages projects to be sent in an electronic format, said the European Commissioner for Regional Policy, Romanian Corina Crețu, quoted by Agerpres.

“We [e.n the EC] do not generally change the rules as we go. The national state usually adds a lot of bureaucracy. The Prime Minister himself said at our first meeting that, while he was the president of the Timis County Council, he spend his four days in office signing thousands of pages, saying this was a Brussels requirement. It is not a Brussels requirement, on the contrary. Romania is the only member state still sending projects with thousands of signed pages. There are projects of 6,000 pages and the requirements of the national authorities are that these are signed and sealed,” Cretu said.

She explained that the commission is trying to simplify procedures by encouraging the e-Cohesion, meaning “sending the documents in an electronic format, encouraging the simplified cost. We already know, in principle, what is the value of a project, so, from this point of view, what we do in Brussels stems from this wish to encourage member states,” the commissioner said.

She also said she was disappointed with the youth giving up on accessing EU funds because the procedures are too complicated. “I want to assure you that in many cases these [e.n. the procedures] do not come from Brussels. I understand that the EU money needs to be controlled very well, we have zero tolerance regarding fraud. On the other hand, I do not think one should start from the very beginning with a total lack of confidence or with suspicion facing the beneficiaries,” Crețu said.

Romania still has a zero absorption rate of the regional development fund and the cohesion fund, although half of the 2014-2020 programming period has already passed, according to the European Commissioner for Regional Policy.

She also pointed out that Romania had been granted a total of EUR 19 billion for the period 2007-2013, of which the country has lost EUR 2 billion, including EUR 1 billion in the transport sector. “Transport is unfortunately the weakness we have had in the last 10 years. Romania is the country that has the lowest absorption in the transport area,” said Cretu.

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