Eugen Teodorovici, adviser to the prime minister, said Thursday the financial corrections applied by the EC for irregularities found in the Romanian EU fund management system range between 10% and 25% of refunds. He added that the final amount will be decided after discussions with European officials.
The European Commission on Thursday informed Romanian authorities about its decision to pre-suspend payment for three Romanian EU-funded programs, for transport, regional development and economic competitiveness, due to irregularities in the fund management system.
The total value of the projects targeted rises to EUR10.5 billion.
Romania has two months to remove problems, which concern public procurement, fund management, as well as the prevention of fraud and conflict of interest.
Following checkups carried out in 2010 and 2011, the European Commission identified a series of irregularities in the Romanian structural fund management system and stopped payments made through the European Regional Development Fund and the Cohesion Fund in mid-2011.
In December 2011, the EC resumed payments after Romania pledged it would remove public procurement problems. Rumanian authorities had until mid-2012 to prove that the country’s EU fund management system worked properly.
As Romania failed to remove the problems identified by EU authorities and improve its EU fund management system, the European Commission will not be able to make refunds, the Commission said.