European Parliament gives Romania extra time to spend EU money from 2011 and 2012

Romania will have another year to spend the EU funds it was allotted for 2011 and 2012, following a recent vote in the European Parliament. Both Romania and Slovakia have been given this extension. For Romania this will mean avoiding a EUR 2 billion loss of EU funds, the Romanian Minister for European Funds Eugen Teodorovici explained. Romania will have until the end of 2014 to spend the money allotted for 2011, and until the end of 2015 to spend the cash from 2012. According to Teodorovici, the recent vote in the European Parliament gives Romania the chance to fix some of the mistakes it made in the past, and make up for the authorities' incapacity to absorb EU funds between 2009 and 2011, during the democrat Liberal Party government. Romania managed to absorb EUR 650 million in European money in October, bringing the total stock of EU funds absorbed by the country so far to some EUR 4.7 billion, according to recent data from the European Funding Ministry. This places the rate of absorption at some 24.5 percent, up a few percentage points from 21.1 percent end of September. editor@romania-insider.com