Ciuca gov't set to speed up absorption of European funds

In its agenda submitted to Parliament on Saturday, the team of Prime Minister-designate Nicolae Ciuca pledges to speed up Romania using up the European funds at its disposal both under the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR) and in the 2021-2027 financial framework, agerpres reports.

The agenda comprises clear deadlines for some of the measures:

* Mandating the Ministry of European Investment and Projects and the Ministry of Finance to sign the financing agreement and the loan agreement under the National Recovery and Resilience Plan worth 29.2 billion euros with the European Commission (deadline: 15 days);

* Approving by government decision the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (deadline: 30 days);

* Approving a government emergency ordinance establishing the institutional framework, financial mechanism, verification and control procedures for the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (deadline: 30 days);

* Signing financing agreements with each body responsible for implementing reforms/investment, as well as clearly identifying a reform officer for them (deadline: 60 days);

* Speeding up the 2021-2027 framework budgeting and completing the documents for the eight national and eight regional programmes by observing the partnership principle (deadline: 30 days for the documents related to Cohesion Policy; exception: the operational programme fair transition, which has a 45-day deadline;

* Promptly completing the legislation needed for the start of the 2021-2027 period, especially that relating to framework, financial flows, eligible expenditures, irregularities, decentralisation of regional operational programmes;

* Ensuring and implementing a mechanism to guarantee co-financing for the beneficiaries, as well as the payment of applications within 30 days, by putting in place a standing government support fund at the disposal of the managing authorities;

* Implementing management simplification measures for authorities for the fluidisation of absorption;

* Actual payments from government resources for European projects to cover the beneficiaries' expenses as a result of increases in prices for construction materials.