The chairman of the Social Democratic Party (PSD), Marcel Ciolacu, said on Thursday that, if necessary, he would go to Brussels with Prime Minister Nicolae Ciuca to explain to the European Commission that part of the European funds for the 2016-2020 financial year could be used for the social measures proposed by governing coalition.
"We are not changing the mechanism and it is all for the first time we anticipated these things, all speaking in the same voice the same thing as the European commissioners when they came to Romania. If necessary, I am firmly convinced that both I and Prime Minister Nicolae Ciuca get on the train together, on the plane, in what it takes, we will go to Brussels and we will enlighten the Commission in the current situation, in which the nearest state, the state with the longest border on the conflict zone, needs help from the European Union as well," Ciolacu said, at DCNews, asked what will happen if the European Commission does not accept that Romania will use the money from European funds for social measures, Agerpres.ro informs.
Ciolacu said that during the financial year 2016 -2020 our country has an absorption of 53 pct of the European funds.
"I spoke to the Commissioner on Cohesion and Development. It was accepted to move (the money, ed. n.). The Commission has drawn our attention to the fact that we no longer have time to implement on certain chapters. (...) Then it is normal that, moving to this area, and we have had discussions with the European Commissioners of economy and labour, that another chance not to lose these 14.7 billion euros we have only if we redirect them both to the social area and to the economic area. It would be an absorption on this package of EUR 17 billion, a component of EUR 1.7 billion to be from European funds. This is the plan we made in the coalition," Ciolacu said.