The Ministry of European Investments and Projects (MIPE) and the European Commission have come to terms on a pre-agreement that will allow Romania to absorb all available non-reimbursable funds, to transfer mature projects to the loan component, and simplify targets and milestones, minister in charge Dragos Pislaru declared on Monday after the government meeting.
"We are in the process of analyzing and revising the National Recovery and Resilience Plan and, in order to discuss the specific elements and the future plan, we were on a mission to Brussels this weekend. We had a meeting with Ms. Celine Gauer (Director General of SG RECOVER, ed. note) and her colleagues on Friday. (...) The situation of the National Recovery and Resilience Plan is complicated. The good news is that together with the European Commission we have agreed on a work plan for the coming period. (...) We already have a pre-agreement that has been reconfirmed, related to the non-reimbursable component where, at the moment, we are faring well and doing what it takes for Romania to be able to absorb all the non-reimbursable money under the NRRP facility," Paslaru said, adding that Romania will try to keep all the existing projects which are low-risk in terms of their implementation until 2026, while also focusing on the technical aspects of the other medium-risk projects.
"We will try to simplify the targets and milestones in order to streamline things and introduce a good package of reforms that can be fulfilled quickly for Payment Request No. 4, while making sure that the reforms with a high budgetary cost are rolled over to the requests of the following year. We discussed what the calendar would look like until the end of the NRRP, and also the idea of submitting two more payment requests next year," the minister also said.
According to him, no fixed calendar has yet been established, but Ms. Celine Gauer might come to Bucharest July 14 - 15 for the sides to nail down the final agreement, after which the revised National Recovery and Resilience Plan will be sent to Brussels for approval.
Pislaru emphasized that the discussions were directly linked to the fiscal package, which is also a reform pledged under the NRRP and which has been postponed for roughly three years. According to him, the government is putting in efforts to unlock the suspended installment under Payment Request No. 3 by November 25, so that Payment Request No. 4 can be next submitted.
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