A third of the unspent EU funds belonged to Romania

Romania failed to spend some EUR 1.64 billion of the EU funds allotted to it in the 2007-2013 EU financial exercise. The sum represents a third of the EUR 4.4 billion in EU funds, which remained unspent in this period, local Cursdeguvernare.ro reported. Romania failed to spend some EUR 704 million worth of cohesion funds for the transport and environment sectors, EUR 664 million worth of regional development funds and EUR 276 million worth of human resource funds. By comparison, Poland only failed to attract EUR 353,000 of the EU funds allotted to it between 2007 and 2013, Hungary failed to spend EUR 27.9 million and Bulgaria – EUR 240.7 million. Romania had 9 years to spend these funds, from January 1, 2007 until December 31, 2015. However, due to delays in implementing the EU funded projects, Romania had to ask that some of these projects be split between the previous and the current financial exercise. Romania has also recorded big delays in starting the EU fund absorption for the current financial framework and risks losing funds again. This may lead to a lower allotment in the future EU financial framework, after 2020. Romania draws no EU funds in January editor@romania-insider.com