Romania, ready to take EUR 33 bn via Partnership Agreement with EU for 2014-2020

This file is Corina Cretu’s first document officialy signed in Romania as European Commissioner.

Corina Cretu officially started her term as European Commissioner for Regional Policy signing Romania’s Partnership Agreement with the European Union for 2014-2020, alongside Eugen Teodorovici, Minister of European Funds, Friday, at Bucharest, a press release informs. Thus, Romania becomes the 11th EU member state which agreement was approved.
This document allows Romania to access EUR 33 billion by 2020, of which about EUR 23 billion are for Cohesion policy.
“Almost 50 per cent of public investment in Romania has been conducted on European funds. Those funds are the European Commission’s commitment to bridge the development gaps among Europe’s regions. I believe that, unfortunately, Romania is one of the countries where discrepancies between cities and the countryside continue to be glaring and painful. We have to learn to develop together, or else we cannot develop in the long run and the European funds are an instrument the European Union uses to teach us a lesson in solidarity among the member states,” Cretu told a press conference.
Cretu pointed out the things that Romania has made using EU funds.
“Romania has already done good things with the funds — building 124 km of motorways, rehabilitating 923 km of county roads, providing access for thousands of people to modern waste management systems and restoring scientific research. In just three years, between 2012 and 2014, Romania has managed to invest 6.8 million euros, meaning 38 per cent of the funds earmarked to in in 2007-2013,” said Cretu.
In his turn, European Funds Minister Eugen Teodorovici hopes that an agreement will be reached with European Commission on the operational programmes by the end of November.
“Romania sent the operational programmes to the European Commission, even the one on large infrastructure including transports, environment and energy. The discussions with those of the Commission will follow. We are hoping to reach an agreement with the European Commission on the operational programmes by the end of November, except for the infrastructure part, the last we sent to the Commission, which will probably require a longer period of time before we get an answer. The rest have all been sent and we are hoping to reach an agreement on them with the Commission by the end of November, 2014. That is an agreement and not an approval, because the EC approval internal process comes afterwards,” Teodorovici said.
The Minister pointed out that project callouts would be launched on the Competitiveness Operational Programme and the Human Capital Operational Programme for the new financial framework this year. The European Funds Minister also showed that Romania in November would send the European Commission reimbursement requests for the Sectoral Operational Programme Human Resources Development for the 2007-2013 programming period.

Cohesion policycorina cretuEUEugen TeodoroviciEuropean CommissionerfundsPartnership Agreementprogrammesregional policyRomania
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