Romania passes last stage necessary to accessing European funds

Romania has passed the last stage necessary to the accessing of the European funds, but there still is much and difficult work, said, on Friday, head of the Department for European Affairs, minister Vasile Puscas.

'In point of the institutions, Romania has fully passed the last mandatory stage for attesting the capacity of management of the structural funds. From now on, the priority of the Government gets oriented toward the efficiency of the system of management of the community funds, with a view to the achievement of an as high as possible absorption rate,' stressed Vasile Puscas in a press release made known to AGERPRES.

His statement comes into the context in which Romania got on Aug 20 the accrediting for the Management Authority of the Sectoral Operational Transport Programme, and at the same time with it, the accrediting of the conformity for the management systems of the authorities managing Operational Programmes, funded from European Funds. This stage represents an absolutely necessary evolution, allowing Romania the accessing and running of intermediate funds, in the context of the implementation of projects financed from European money.

Vasile Puscas stressed the fact that Romania has been forced since the beginning of this year, to get focused on recovering this disadvantage, setting under the question mark its absorption capacity.

According to him, in line with the calendar subsequently assumed, these problems should be solved until the moment of accession, at the latest at the moment of accession, allowing for the start of the implementation of projects financed from structural funds and a competitive absorption rate.

Minister Puscas believes that without this recognition from the European Commission, of the implementation and keeping by the Romanian authorities of many enough guarantees regarding the use of the community funds, through programmes financed from structural money and a competitive absorption rate.

Minister Puscas believes that without this recognition from the European Commission of the implementation and keeping by the Romanian authorities of many enough guarantees regarding the use of the community funds, through programmes financed from structural funds, run could have been exclusively downpayments, which could have set Romania in the situation of benefiting only to a limited pace from these funds.

In the period 2007-2013, Romania has been allocated through the structural and cohesion funds, almost 20 billion euros, and through the funds for agriculture and fishing, over 10 billion euros.

During 2009, the dynamics of the administrative stages of evaluation and approval of the projects has been positive, compared with the similar stage in the previous year, with the number of the projects approved being five times higher, and the number of financing contracts signed with the beneficiaries around ten times higher. The payments to the beneficiaries have risen around ten times. The payments to the beneficiaries have risen from around one percent of the allocation at the end of 2008 to some seven percent in the year 2009.

agerpres.ro