Romania collected this year over EUR 460 million from the European Commission (EC), the European funds absorption rate exceeding 52 per cent at the end of February 2015, according to a press release of the European Funds Ministry (MFE) on Tuesday.
European funds minister Eugen Teodorovici said that on February 27 this year, approximately 303 million euros was reimbursed to Romania within the Sectoral Operational Programme Transport and the Regional Operational Programme.
He pointed out that Romania would reach an absorption rate of almost 80 percent at the end of this year, ’a crucial year’, as it is the last when Romania can still draw the funds allotted for the 2007-2013 programming period.
„We already have an action plan, based on continuing the measures for simplifying and making (ed.note the procedures) more efficient we have been implementing since the beginning of 2013, a plan in response to the Task Force initiative of Commissioner Corina Cretu (ed.note — European Commissioner for Regional Policies),” Teodorovici added.
The MFE data shows that the amounts reimbursed to Romania this year from structural and cohesion funds account for EUR 223 million on the Sectoral Operational Programme Transport, EUR 158 million on the Sectoral Operational Programme Human Resources Development and EUR 80 million on the Regional Operational Programme.
According to MFE data, at the end of January the absorption rate stood at 51.87 percent, the value of the expense statements sent to EC amounting to EUR 9.966 billion.