“The Commission is about to decide whether the problems found are systemic or not. If they are, total payment suspension for certain programs (e.g. sectoral operational programs) and maybe even for all programs may follow,” people close to the matter told ZF.
President Traian Basescu said Wednesday during the Government meeting he chaired that Romania risked seeing temporary suspension of its EU funds unless the problems in spending of such funds are addressed.
EC audit missions mainly found problems with enforcing the EU legislation on public procurement made with EU money.
Romania should get EUR19.6 billion from the EU for its eight sectoral programs from 2007 through 2013. The absorption of such funds is extremely slow, only about 12% so far, even though we are more than halfway through the allocation period.