PM Dancila on planned regional hospitals: Paperwork submitted by year-end, yet Gov't scrambling to find funding

Premier Viorica Dancila said in an interview aired on Saturday by private broadcaster Antena 3 that the complete documentation for the construction of the planned regional hospitals will be submitted by the end of this year, but that financing solutions still need to be identified.

She explained that 150 million euro are available for the three hospitals, but alone one facility would require 460 million euro, so that public-private partnership could be a solution.

"We had a discussion with [Regional policy Commissioner] Corina Cretu, and with the other Commissioners as well. I believe that for a very good impact, we must resort to European funding, as well as to public private partnership and state budget funds. For the three hospitals we have 150 million euro, which means that after we pay for the feasibility studies, we'll be left with considerably less, but that's not the issue. We must find solutions. Either phase the projects so that we are able to receive more EU money, build with European funds, or make this arrangement with European funds and public-private partnership, there is also a relevant European regulation," Dancila said.

The Premier explained that supplementing funding requires cooperating with Commissioner Corina Cretu or finding another source of funding.

"Of course we want to build these hospitals. We'll submit the entire paperwork by the end of this year. There is no problem in this regard. Yet we must look a little further. We need 460 million euro just for one hospital; we need to scramble, work with Mrs. Cretu in order to get more money from the European Commission, or find another source of funding, and for this we are considering public-private partnership. We must see what the best formula is. We definitely want an as high as possible inflow of EU money to Romania, an absorption, rate as high as possible. We hope to reach 100 percent at the end of the mandate. We have an ambitious goal, but at the same time we also want to put the public-private partnership to work," Viorica Dancila said.