European money destined for agriculture and rural areas is always absorbed close to the maximum, and based on the latest analyses we have done, I believe we will reach somewhere around 96-98% of the total funds allocated for the previous year, 2014-2020, said on Tuesday the head of the Agency for Financing Rural Investments (AFIR), Adrian Chesnoiu, at a specialist event.
"We can say that European money destined for agriculture and rural areas is always absorbed close to the maximum. We have increased the absorption rate and even based on the latest analyses we have done, I believe that we will reach somewhere around 96-98% of the total funds allocated for the previous year, which means that, on the one hand, our farmers and beneficiaries have adapted and become accustomed to the rigors of European regulations and the conditionalities imposed in order to access this money. On the other hand, the quality of services offered by my colleagues from AFIR has also increased, because it is a public institution, perhaps a little more special, I do not want to cross the line of modesty, but we have always been open to our beneficiaries in guiding them and being their partners and not just financiers," he said.
The head of AFIR emphasised that the Romanian Government has adopted a concept that he "cares a lot about", namely that of the complementarity of European funds with national funds.
"I would like to emphasise something extremely important, especially in this regional area in which we find ourselves, namely a concept that I have been very keen on and that the Government has recently adopted - that of the complementarity of European funds with national funds. On European funds we are limited by the conditionalities imposed by the regulations or by the horizontal financing lines in all 27 states, and our state - or each member state of the European Union - has the instrument of state aid at its disposal, because there has been a wide public debate regarding how much the state should or should not intervene in the economy. Each state can intervene through targeted aid where it considers it appropriate. And I think that the best example we can give is the Investalim programme and I was talking about AFIR. 600 million euros budget provided by the Romanian state through state aid targeted precisely the deficit areas in the trade balance, so that we can create large production units, a large capacity to market products, primarily to ensure our national consumption, internal consumption, but, why not, to also target exports," argued Adrian Chesnoiu.
In his opinion, the food industry is an area where the state can intervene, targeted, with these state aids, so that Romania can be competitive on the market.
The head of the Agency for Financing Rural Investments, Adrian Chesnoiu, participated, on Tuesday, in the ZF Agrobusiness Summit 2025: Agriculture: from food to business.
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