The financing contract was signed on Thursday in Luxembourg by Romanian Finance Minister Anca Dragu and EIB Vice-President Cristian Popa.
“Through this loan, we will partially cover the state budget contribution to projects related to water, wastewater, waste management, protection and conservation of biodiversity, restoration of degraded ecosystems and climate change adjustment,” Dragu stated.
Popa said that the EIB loan will co-finance priority projects with a total value of some EUR 4.5 billion, contributing to an increase in Romania’s utilisation of EU grants, adding that this is the first operation in a pipeline of diversified projects that the EIB and Romanian authorities are working on, including transport, rural development, support for small and medium-sized enterprises, and competitiveness-related investments.
The EIB financing is being granted in the form of a Structural Programme Loan. In addition to large-scale infrastructure projects, the EIB loan may also be used to finance smaller schemes, which, due to their limited size, would otherwise not qualify for direct EIB financing.
The loan is a continuation of the EU bank’s support for strategic priority investments under EU Operational Programmes in Romania, following the EUR 1 billion National Strategic Reference Co-financing loan for Transport and Environment projects provided under the 2007-2013 programming period, Finance Ministry stated.
The EIB technical assistance initiative JASPERS (Joint Assistance to Support Projects in European Regions – provided jointly by the EIB, European Commission and EBRD) has contributed to the preparation of some of the long-term development strategies underlying the selection of projects to be implemented with funds from this loan, thus verifying and ensuring the consistent quality of the projects to be implemented.