The Minister of Investment and European Projects, Dragos Pislaru, stated on Thursday that, regarding payment request no. 4 from the PNRR, the European Commission would most likely approve the payment in March.
"Only after reviewing this PNRR and publishing the Council's decision were we able to submit, and we immediately submitted, payment request 4. Payment request 4, amounting to 2.62 billion, is at an advanced stage of, let's say, consultation and verification by the European Commission. As I said in public, we will most likely have the go-ahead, the green light from the European Commission for payment in March, and this is exactly within the European Commission's deadline. Because it was December and the holidays were over, the European Commission is reserving the right to extend the usual deadlines, so we will reach the beginning of March, in March, when we will also have the final deadline," explained Dragos Pislaru on Thursday at a press conference at Victoria Palace.
In this context, Pislaru was asked about the "dispute" that arose in the public sphere with his coalition colleague, former Social Democratic Minister of European Funds Adrian Caciu, who asked him to publish data from the National Bank of Romania (BNR) regarding payments from the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR).
"I have no quarrel with people who don't know what they're talking about or are simply contributing directly to the disaster that has led to us now having to fix the situation with the PNRR. He can argue with whomever he wants. What I am saying, and what I have said in public, is that the BNR account is a collector account and has no connection with the cash management of the Ministry of Finance. At the same time, the sequence of payment requests is very clear to everyone. For payment request 3, due to the actions of previous governments, we had a suspension, payment request 4 could not be submitted because we found the PNRR in total disarray and blocked, and because the governments did not recognize and accept the fact that there are projects that can no longer be completed, I had to revise it," said Pislaru.
He added, referring to the criticism he had received, that "you must either be malicious or ignorant of how things stand."
"When I became minister and there were 6 billion in the PNRR account, you should have thought it was a great achievement, i.e., 6 billion that had to be spent and wasn't spent, and we had 6 billion in the account, it was wonderful, right? Now it's gone because we spent it. This government... so from 2021 until June, only 4 billion had been spent on the PNR. The government came in on June 23 and spent over 6 billion, so we no longer have any money in the BNR account. And the question is, for anyone with a clear head and anyone who knows a little bit about economics and European affairs, is it bad that you spent that money? Isn't it, in fact, my responsibility as minister to ensure that this money is spent on investment projects so that we can complete them by August 31? How insensitive is it to say that it would have been better to leave the money in the account? (...) I repeat, I have no dispute, I admit that lately I have felt a certain amount of indignation towards people who comment from the sidelines," said Pislaru.
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