President Iohannis calls on parties, gov’t, mayors, businessmen to get mobilised and solidary on the National Recovery and Resilience Plan

President Klaus Iohannis has launched a call to general mobilisation and solidarity to all political and business factors in Romania to endorse and enforce the National Recovery and Resilience Plan. The President’s call comes few days before the Romanian Governments submits the plan to the European Commission.

“We overcame together a difficult time, we have a very clear target, to build Romania after the pandemic,” the head of state pointed out, stressing that it will not mean getting back to the situation before the pandemic, but using the money from the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR) and the European funds for investments in education, digitalisation, environment protects, etc.

Iohannis argued that investments cannot function without reforms, saying that Romania has EUR 80 billion at its disposal.

“The sums are relevant only if they are materialised indeed in investments and reforms. These funds can produce fundamental changes in the Romanians’ lives. It is a huge chance that we are not allowed to waste”, the president continued, underlining that the future of our society depends on a certain extent on the PNRR’s success.
“From this perspective,  this plan has no political colour, even if it was drafted with great efforts and intensely negotiated at European level by the current ruling coalition, which understands very well what are our country’s development needs and what needs to be done to achieve our goals. This plan belongs to Romania and its implementation will anyway stretch beyond the term of the incumbent government. Petty political approaches or electoral criticism can only weaken its chances of success”, Klaus Iohannis stated.

In his view, now it is time for all responsible political forces to get out of the narrow-minded party logic, to prove solidarity and responsibility and to support with all strength this national effort.

“I call on the rulers to continue actions, including the communication ones, so that procedures should be very clear at central level to access the projects and the deadlines for the completion of the reforms.

I also make a call on mayors, on the local authorities, that, immediately after the Plan is approved by the European Commission to already start the preparations and to identify those projects that fit the required conditions,” the head of state emphasized, adding that the business environment also has a major part, particularly the companies operating on the healthcare, transport and energy infrastructure.