The absorption of European funds is currently 84 pct and will reach 88 pct at the end of September, minister of Investments and European Projects Adrian Caciu said on Tuesday at hearings in the Committee on European Affairs of the Chamber of Deputies.
"Once again, the objective that we have set by order of the minister is that we have a 94 pct absorption rate at the end of the year, but payments to the beneficiaries, and this is very important, because in the end the eligibility is done on the expenses incurred on December 31, to be 110 pct. Why 110 pct? Because we also have projects that have suspicions of fraud, irregularities or may involve other suspicions during the audit of these expenses, both by the Certification Authority and Payment, but also by the Audit Authority of Romania. Then, in order to have this reserve, the payments to the beneficiaries on December 31 must be 110 pct and I'm talking about total programmes, obviously, within the axes," said Caciu, agerpres reports.
He added that experts from the relevant ministry are in discussions with those from the European Commission to make it possible to continue the "up-to-date" projects and move some funds from "those axes that are not performing".
Adrian Caciu, was heard, on Tuesday, in the Commission for European Affairs regarding the status of milestones in the National Recovery and Resilience Plan.