Romania Gets Only €1.3B from PNRR Request No. 3, EU Cites Issue

The Ministry of Investments and European Projects (MIPE) announced on Thursday that European Commission officials consider the milestones in Payment Request 3 partially met, which is why our country will receive approximately 1.3 billion euros out of the total of 2.02 billion euros. Romania will have 6 months to meet the other requirements, so as to receive the full amount of money. One of the unmet milestones is 215, which concerns special pensions.

“The European Commission has appreciated the substantial progress made by the Romanian authorities in recent months to correct and clarify the milestones related to Payment Request No. 3, considered partially fulfilled. In this regard, the European Executive transmitted, on March 25, 2025, that Romania is to receive a partial payment of approximately 1.3 billion euros. This decision confirms the recognition of the efforts made by the Romanian Government and marks a clear step towards the full unblocking of Payment Request No. 3, which has a net value of 2.02 billion euros,” the Ministry of Investments and European Projects said in a press release on Thursday.

The institution specifies that Romania has a one-month deadline to submit an official response to the Commission’s letter and a six-month deadline to implement all necessary measures to fully unblock the payment request and fully fulfill the milestones and targets in Payment Request No. 3.

“It is important to emphasize that this procedural stage does not imply the loss of funds related to payment request no. 3. The amounts remain allocated to Romania, and the collaboration with the European Commission aims to fully complete the payment authorization process,” the ministry officials also said.

According to MIPE, following the assessment of the achievement of the targets and milestones included in Payment Request No. 3, the European Commission communicated to Romania on 15 October 2024 that a number of 68 targets and milestones were assessed positively and another 6 milestones were assessed as partially met. Subsequently, on 8 November 2024, it adopted the opinion on the preliminary assessment. T

his process was suspended following the amendment of the legal framework on special pensions (milestone 215): Adoption of Law No. 223/2015 on state military pensions; Decision of the Constitutional Court on the provisions of art. 101 of Law No. 227/2015 on the Fiscal Code, which declared the progressive taxation for certain categories of special pensions unconstitutional.

Following the Constitutional Court Decision, the European Commission informed Romania that milestone 215 can no longer be considered satisfactorily met, due to issues of fairness in establishing certain categories of special pensions in relation to the general public pension system. The amount suspended until the milestone is satisfactorily met is EUR 230 million.

According to the cited source, the following elements also remain under analysis: improving the corporate governance of state-owned energy companies (value of the suspended amount – approximately EUR 300 million) and operationalizing corporate governance policies for state-owned enterprises and appointing a management at the National Agency for Monitoring and Evaluation of Public Enterprises – AMEPIP (value of the suspended amount – approximately EUR 400 million).

MIPE specifies that, during this period, Romania has taken additional measures to remedy several deficiencies indicated by the European Commission in the process of analyzing payment request no. 3, as follows:

• Regarding corporate governance in the field of state-owned companies, steps were initiated to resume the AMEPIP management selection procedure and update the legal framework to facilitate the replacement of members appointed to the boards of directors, especially for companies in the transport and energy sector;
• Modification of the special tax regime applicable to micro-enterprises, following the adoption by Romania of GEO no. 156/2024;
• Regarding milestone 215, the Ministry of Labor, Family, Youth and Social Solidarity, together with representatives of the World Bank, identified a new mechanism to replace the progressive over-taxation of the non-contributory part of the pension, which would ensure the same budgetary impact and which would comply with the criteria in the PNRR regarding the principles of contributory and equity.

These measures regarding milestone 215 contributed to avoiding the application of a maximum suspension related to the failure to implement this reform.

Romania benefits from 28.5 billion euros through the PNRR, of which 13.6 billion euros in the form of grants and 14.9 billion euros in the form of loans.