Romanian finance minister wants new system for spending EU funds

EU countries should be able to spend EU funds in advance and penalties should be imposed to countries that don’t reach a minimum EU fund absorption rate, are two “radical changes” proposed by Romanian finance minister Eugen Teodorovici. He said that all EU member states should be able to spend public funds or money received from international loans, starting January 1, 2019, and ask the European Commission to cover these expenses from EU funds in the next financial period, which starts on January, 2021, if the expenses made are in line with European priorities, local Ziarul Financiar reported. The minister said that member states would thus avoid possible delays in implementing the operational programmes in the next financial exercise and would get to make other investments than those financed with EU funds in the current financial exercise, which ends on December 31, 2020. However, he also proposed that countries that don’t reach a minimum absorption level should not be allowed to use this mechanism of spending funds in advance. Romania recorded the lowest EU fund absorption rate in the 2007-2013 financial exercise. The country also has a low absorption rate in the current financial exercise (2014-2020) and European Commissioner for Regional Policy Corina Cretu has recently criticized the Romanian authorities for failing to come up with new projects for EU funding, especially in the infrastructure area. Commissioner: Romania should focus on spending EU funds editor@romania-insider.com (photo source: Gov.ro)