The decision was made in the Cabinet’s special meeting Thursday on the absorption of EU funds.
The Government has recently decided to stop sending bills for EU fund reimbursements to Brussels. Prime Minister Emil Boc said at that time Romania will finance EU projects from the state budget and the Government will send the bills to the European Commission to recover the EU funds only after double-checking all the documents, to avoid losing EU money over faulty procedures.
“All investments continue, we’re not halting any projects and payment will come from the state budget,” said Boc.
According to the budget revision approved Wednesday, the Finance Ministry will lend EU fund management authorities up to 2.2 billion lei (EUR520.7 million), over the year, from privatization proceeds, to stimulate EU fund absorption.
The management authorities must send the ministry a chart of fund requests broken down by month. They must refund these loans by the end of the year from the reimbursements sent by the European Commission, or be charged an interest equal to the central bank’s key rate plus one point.