PM Dancila: Romania's desire to have successful mandate at presidency of Council of EU, highlighted in Brussels

Prime Minister Viorica Dancila said that during the visit she carried out in Brussels she highlighted Romania's desire to have a successful mandate at the presidency of the Council of the European Union. 

At the beginning of Thursday's Gov't sitting, the premier presented the results of the working visit she carried out, 9 to 10 July in Brussels, where she had meetings with the European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, European Commission First Vice-President Frans Timmermans, with European Commissioners for Regional Policy Corina Cretu, for Agriculture and Rural Development Phil Hogan and for Budget and Human Resources Gunther Oettinger. 

"I highlighted Romania's desire to have a successful mandate at the presidency of the Council and to constructively contribute to the definition and promotion of the common European interest," Dancila stated. 

At the same time she specified she met in Brussels with the diplomats of the Permanent Representation of Romania to the European Union, whom she thanked for their efforts made for the preparation of Romania's presidency at the Council of the EU. 

"I talked to (...) Mr. Oettinger about the future multiannual financial framework post-2020 (..). We uphold both the new policies - and I am referring to the defence policy, I'm referring to innovation, to research - but at the same time, we grant special importance to traditional policies - and I'm referring here to the common agricultural policy and the cohesion policy," Dancila said. 

She stated that she also discussed about organising in Bucharest, end-October, a conference focusing on the topic of the implementation of projects already approved for financing in 2018. 

"We want to achieve, at the end of the year, from a 19 percent absorption rate, as it is today as compared to the European average of 20 percent, to reach a 25 percent absorption rate. We also discussed about the stage of some concrete projects, and I'm referring here to Metro line M6 but also the three regional hospitals and we convened, at the same time, to send supplementary projects, so that we can avoid the de-commitment of the 800 million euro on the Regional Operational Progarmme," Dancila showed. 

She further showed that she discussed in Brussels about the floods in Romania and about accessing the Solidarity Fund and Corina Cretu gave assurances the the EC experts will support our country in assessing the damages. (...) 

At the same time, the Prime Minister referred to the talk with Phil Hogan about the common agricultural policy. 

"We voiced our concern as regards the capping of subsidies granted to big farms that Romania does not endorse and (...) the concern over the amounts aimed at rural development, where there is a 8.15 billion drop to 6.75 billion," Dancila further said.