Romania is facing an absolutely paradoxical situation, trying to end this year with a deficit of 8.4%, somehow with almost non-existent resources or fiscal space, while at the same time is sitting on a mountain of European money, the Minister of Investments and European Projects, Dragos Pislaru, told a secialist conference on Tuesday.
"We are at a time when we are talking about Romania's ambition to find its natural place in Europe through the strength of its own capital (...) Romania is facing an absolutely paradoxical situation. It had a budget deficit of 9.3 and is trying to end this year with 8.4, somehow with almost non-existent resources or fiscal space. At the same time, it is sitting on a mountain of European money and, at this point, in the portfolio that I alone have, so I am not including Agriculture and Rural Development, I have 55 billion euros available to be invested in the Romanian economy, part of which, about 13 billion of the 21.5 billion that will remain in the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR), are still unspent and must be spent by next year, on August 31. Somehow, this shows us, paradoxically, that we still have a dual approach: European money and national money, considered differently. Regarding the next period, mathematically, if things happen as they are currently planned, Romania should be able to absorb 13 billion euros through the PNRR, to which is added about 5 billion euros under Cohesion. That's about where we're at this year... We're at 4.6 - 4.7 billion under the Cohesion Policy," Pislaru mentioned at the CursDeGuvernare conference.
In Pislaru's vision, in order to be able to discuss Romania's domestic and international business capital, public administration needs to be professionalised.
"Because, in order to be able to discuss Romanian and international business capital, what we need is to professionalise public administration. First of all, you can't discuss a vision in the context in which, at this points, the business environment is growing rather in spite of the state, not with the support of the state (...) We have now reached a clarity regarding what we are implementing, the fact that we have money allocated to pay the national financing component and the loan component. At this point, we really have this image of Romania as a large construction site, with over 20,000 projects, which cannot fail to create positive or driving effects in the economy," said Dragos Pislaru.
Economists, experts and decision-makers, along with CEOs of top Romanian companies, are participating on Tuesday in a new CursDeGuvernare (CDG) conference, with the theme "Romania's native capital - the internationalisation of businesses: maturation and transition to the status of a regional force".
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