Several hundred employees from the Agricultural Payments and Intervention Agency (APIA), the Agency for Financing Rural Investments (AFIR) and the Ministry of Investments and European Projects (MIPE) protest in front of the Government on Tuesday.
The protest action of the three trade union organizations, affiliated with the National Trade Union Bloc (BNS), is directed against the recent legislative measures, "which seriously affect the capacity to manage European funds.", agerpres reports.
During the protest, a delegation of five people will submit an official memorandum to the registry of the Romanian Government.
Last week, the "MIPE-Normalitate" trade union reported that the staff structure within the Ministry of Investments and European Projects is undersized and that employees do not determine their own income.
The union's clarifications came following statements by PM Ilie Bolojan during a television broadcast on Tuesday, July 8, by a television station.
"The staff structure is undersized, not oversized, MIPE (Ministry of Investments and European Projects) is facing a severe staff shortage and a high degree of workload that can generate system errors (...). However, MIPE has achieved remarkable results thanks to MIPE professionals accustomed to performing despite all difficulties. Contrary to the statement "They imposed a European funds incentive on their salary", salaries are legally regulated and financed from European funds. MIPE employees do not determine their incomes themselves," the document states.
According to the same source, the increases and bonuses are granted by Law 490/2004, GEO 133/2021, GEO 119/2024 - acts issued by the Romanian Government, and are mostly financed from European projects, since Romania's accession to the EU, with the explicit aim of attracting and maintaining professionals in the public system, as repeatedly recommended by the European Commission.
Regarding the ratio between the absorption of European funds and the work of MIPE employees, the trade union representatives emphasise that Romania ranks 2nd in the EU in terms of volume of funds attracted in 2025 (value of 4.7 billion euros, equivalent to 15.2% absorption), above the European average of 11%.
At the same time, 79% of the EU allocation for cohesion policy (CF) has open calls, the absorption rate for the Sustainable Development Programme (SDP) ranked Romania 1st in the EU, a number of 15,982 projects were submitted, exceeding 146% of the Union allocation, while 5,622 financing contracts were signed.
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