Romania submitted on Friday a request to the European Commission to amend its National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR) and to add a new chapter on REPowerEU, which aims to strengthen the Union's strategic autonomy by diversifying energy supply and increasing the EU's independence and security of energy supply.According to a press release from the EU executive, the chapter on REPowerEU proposed by Romania covers two new reforms and six new investments, as well as a reinforced measure already in the plan. The reforms and investments in this chapter are related to increasing green energy production, improving the energy efficiency of buildings and strengthening the skills of the green energy workforce.The amendment to the plan proposed by Romania foresees the removal of four investments from the initial plan and the modification of about 70 measures.Romania's request to amend its plan is based on the need to take account of high inflation in 2022, supply chain disruptions and the downward revision of its maximum grant allocation under the Recovery and Resilience Mechanism (RRM) from EUR 14.2 billion to EUR 12.1 billion. This revision is part of the June 2022 update of the RRM grant allocation key and reflects Romania's comparatively better economic performance in 2020 and 2021 compared to the initial forecast.Romania has requested the transfer of its share of the Brexit adjustment reserve, amounting to EUR 43.2 million, to the NRRP. Together with the grants provided to Romania through the RRM and REPowerEU (EUR 12.1 billion and EUR 1.4 billion respectively) and the RRM loans already committed under the original plan (EUR 14.9 billion), these funds bring the value of the amended plan presented to almost EUR 28.5 billion.The Commission will now assess whether the amended plan continues to meet all the assessment criteria set out in the RRM Regulation.If the Commission's assessment is positive, the EC will present a proposal to amend the Council Implementing Decision to take account of the changes to the Romanian plan.Member states will then have four weeks to approve the Commission's assessment.
The number of people in Romania at risk of poverty stood at 3.59 million people in 2024, 375,000 fewer than in 2023, representing a 9.4% decrease, according to data from the National Institute of Statistics, or INS. Despite the improvement, nearly one in five Romanians was affected by poverty last year. According to INS, 19% […]
The European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO) in Cluj-Napoca carried out multiple searches on Tuesday, July 1, at the Sibiu International Airport and the Sibiu County Council as part of an investigation into suspected fraud involving a EUR 54 million EU-funded infrastructure project. A total of 24 locations were searched across Bucharest, Brașov, and Sibiu county, […]
A Romanian taxi driver who scammed 90-year-old Nigerian Nobel Prize laureate Wole Soyinka was detained by police on Sunday, June 29, according to media reports. On Friday, June 27, the venerable Nigerian arrived at Bucharest's Otopeni Airport. He got into a taxi and asked to be taken to a hotel downtown. At the destination, the […]
Costin Șerban, a Romanian entrepreneur, is digitalizing the construction sector in the United Kingdom with an ERP (enterprise resource planning) solution developed over 12 years and an investment of GBP 1.6 million (EUR 1.86 million). Șerban’s cloud-based ERP platform is called Abilo, was developed by the Romanian IT company Obi Systems, and is dedicated to […]
Border checks between Bulgaria and Romania have officially been lifted on July 1, as part of the implementation of the Schengen Agreement. The lifting marks the end of the transitional period of heightened control at the internal border, which had remained in place for six months following their accession to the Schengen area by land […]
Remus Vulpescu became CEO of the Bucharest Stock Exchange (BVB) on Tuesday, July 1, taking over from Adrian Tănase as the stock exchange grapples with a market dominated by government bonds. Vulpescu, 53, is a graduate in political and legal sciences from the University of Bucharest and holder of an EMBA obtained in 2017. He […]
