Romania will have to return hundreds of millions of euros in misused EU money

After only managing to get, or 'absorb' a tiny fraction of the EU funding on offer- 9.7 percent rate in September, Romanian will now have to pay back some EUR 175 million due to misuse and irregularities. According to PM Victor Ponta, Romania can expect the European Commission (EC) to demand the penalty following an audit of EU funds' use. The EUR 175 million penalty will be on the POSDRU human resources development program and is more than half the EUR 286 million the scheme has received between 2007 and 2012 in EU structural funds. The EC has already suspended payments under the POSDRU program.

PM Ponta said yesterday (October 24 ) that Romania has to accept these financial corrections and allow for them in the 2013 budget. The EC is expected to announce further results of its audit of Romania's EU funding use since accession today (October 25 ). The exact values of any corrections necessary for Romania to pay will also be announced, but local sources estimate somewhere between 10 and 25 percent of the funding received for transport, economic competitiveness, environment and regional development programs will have to be returned. Payments have been suspended and restarted for the programs receiving EU structural funds a number of times, including earlier this year. Liam Lever, liam@romania-insider.com (photo source: sxc.hu)