Romanian minister claims EU funds absorption rate hit 26% at end-2018

Romania reached 26% absorption rate of the EU funds allotted to it, or EUR 8 billion in absolute terms, minister of European funds Rovana Plumb said on January 8 as part of a Government’s press conference. Although she didn’t specify, the “absorption rate” refers to the broadest definition: it includes the payments in advance and the money given for rural development where typically the absorption rate is high. Speaking about the absorption rate official data, the cohesion plus rural development programmes (total funds disbursed, including the payments in advance -- the definition used by minister Plumb) rose from 10% of the total funds earmarked for Romania under the 2014-2020 EU budget, at the end of 2017, to less than 21% on December 1, 2018.The current absorption rate for the same programmes, measuring the volume of invoices sent to the European Commission for disbursement, increased from 10.9% at the end of 2017 to 17.1% on December 1. When it comes to the six operational programmes alone (cohesion programme), the absorption rate was not much above 14% on December 1. The current absorption rate was 8.9% at December 1, out of the total EUR 22.6 billion earmarked for the six operational programmes under the EU’s 2014-2020 budget. Romania targets 25% EU funds absorption rate by end-2018 Four municipalities in western Romania set up alliance to draw EU funds editor@romania-insider.com (photo source: Pexels.com)