Iohannis on funding in Education: We have managed to crystallise areas where European money can make a difference

On Thursday, President Klaus Iohannis spoke about the possibility of funding some areas of education with European funds and said that important segments have been highlighted for which European Union money can be used.

"We have managed to crystallise several areas where we can make a difference with this European money," Iohannis told a news briefing at the Cotroceni Presidential Palace after meeting Education Minister Sorin Cimpeanu.

He spoke about how Romanian education can be financed "substantially" under the National Recovery and Resilience Plan.

"It is that European money, over 30 billion euros, that will be available to Romania in the coming years, to repair what was damaged by the economic crisis caused by the pandemic, to make public systems, Romania's economy more efficient and more resilient,"said Iohannis.

Regarding the areas in which money can be requested to "make the Romanian education better", the president mentioned, among other things, digitalisation and improving equipping schools.

He emphasised that "digitialisation is a big and difficult chapter and can be settled with European money."

Iohannis also said that the modernisation of schools in Romania is essential.

"With this money we can solve all these problems: we can equip schools, we can modernise them, we can solve problems with plumbing, fire protection and we can bring the schools into the 21st century in terms of facilities," he said.

He also spoke about the possibility of building green schools "where alternative energy is produced, where the cycling of materials is followed."

"These are just some of the areas where we set out to use this European money to fundamentally change education in Romania and to move towards what we have called 'educated Romania'," added Iohannis.