“We ask a public presentation of a report on the updated negotiations between Romania and the European Commission, so that the beneficiaries of the projects affected by the payment pre-suspension could reduce the negative financial consequences,” AOAR said in a statement Monday.
AOAR asked the government to ensure the funding for over 8,000 EU-funded projects to prevent new trials against the Romanian state by companies, non-governmental agencies NGOs or natural persons affected by payment delay. In some cases, these delays reach to over 300 days, breaching the contracts undertaken on behalf of the state by the Intermediary Bodies that manage each program.
The association pointed out the companies involved in these EU-funded projects will be negatively affected by these delays, considering they took loans for providing 50% of the total value of the project, asked and paid letters of bank guarantee with a limited validity, which were all asked for signing up the contracts.
In October, the European Comission pre-suspended three programs co-financed through EU’s structural funds, namely Transports, Regional and Economic Competitiveness.