Minister Pislaru: Projects from the NRRP worth 6.3 billion euros can no longer be completed by August 2026

Projects worth approximately €6.3 billion can no longer be completed by August 2026 and will therefore be removed from the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NRRP), where they had been included for funding, Minister of Investments and European Projects (MIPE), Dragos Pislaru, announced on Tuesday.   He stated that Romania has until the end of July to submit the revised version of the NRRP to the European Commission, while assuring though that Romania will not lose any money from the non-reimbursable funds.   On Tuesday, the Minister of European Funds and representatives from ministries with NRRP-funded projects met with the head of the NRRP Task Force, Celine Gauer, to continue renegotiating the Plan—specifically, to decide which projects will remain funded and which will lose financing.   Minister Pislaru described the roughly three-hour discussion as “very good.” Dragos Pislaru stated that, at a technical level, discussions between Romania and the European Commission had been halted because, despite delays, Romanian representatives were unwilling to politically acknowledge that certain projects might no longer be eligible for funding under the NRRP, preferring instead to justify their removal as a decision imposed by Brussels.   “The European Commission, at a technical level, had stopped discussions with Romania because the Romanian side was unwilling to take responsibility for the delays. Even though the delays were real, the Romanian side did not politically acknowledge that some projects might ‘fall through,’ and instead waited for a sort of decision from the European Commission in order to say that someone in Brussels removed the projects. But this is a major attitude problem, because the Commission doesn’t ‘remove’ anything—it merely observes Romania’s delays and the lack of technical justification that the projects can still be completed by August 2026,” Pislaru said.   He declined to say who is responsible for these delays.“When I took office, there wasn’t even a technical-level discussion about these issues anymore. Talks have been ongoing since August 2024. The delays were more or less acknowledged publicly. My role is only to note that the Romanian side tried to communicate that things might still be interpreted differently,” Pislaru added.   The Minister of European Funds noted that although the NRRP renegotiation has not been finalized and there is no definitive agreement on which projects will retain funding through the Recovery Plan, Romania has projects worth €6.3 billion that had been included in the plan but which will not be completed by the August 2026 deadline. The revised version of the NRRP must be submitted to the European Commission by the end of July.   “At the moment, we are in a situation where, from the perspective of technical analyses, projects worth around 6.3 billion euros cannot be completed by August 2026. So 15 billion, minus 6.3, that is, 8.7 billion that would remain in the PNRR, to which is added a package of measures related to resilience”, said Dragos Pislaru.   Regarding the projects that will be removed from PNRR financing and those that will remain, the head of MIPE says that the ministries have come up with proposals and arguments, and negotiations are set to continue:   “In the discussion we had with the European Commission, the line ministries brought the arguments why these investments are feasible, additional documents will be sent. There is currently an assessment by the Commission that certain things are more feasible than others. We do not have closure on this subject at the moment. By the end of the week, the rest of the evidence will be put on the table. After that, next week, the final technical discussions will take place”.   Asked what investments could be removed from the list of projects that were included for financing under the PNRR, Pislaru said that the list is not yet finalized, because negotiations are still ongoing, but that among the eliminated projects will also be those that have not yet started.   “The list (of the eliminated projects, editor’s note) will become public as soon as we have the memorandum of understanding, it is not a secret, but negotiations are still ongoing. It is about all the projects that simply have not started,” the minister explained.   Asked what will happen to the projects removed from the PNRR, whether the construction sites will be put into conservation or simply abandoned, Pislaru said that alternative sources of financing can be found, depending on prioritization and cash flow.   “We have several types of stages. We have projects for which only contracts are signed and nothing happens on them. For those projects, obviously, you rather close the contracts and wait to see another source of financing. But we also have mature projects, which are in implementation and which may have just started, but are crucial for the modernization of the country, for example, the A7, A8 highways. I have already spoken with the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Development. We will have a prioritization mechanism, to find alternative sources of financing, we have the cohesion policy, we have the modernization fund, we have the European Investment Bank and you will see, it must go in parallel. Once you clarify what is included and what is not included in the PNRR, obviously you have to check the fiscal space you have and how you place all the other projects and what is the cash flow. What financing do you need this year”, explained the minister.   The Minister of European Funds said, however, that at this point Romania will not lose a single euro from grants from the PNRR. “We have confirmation that Romania will not lose a single euro from the non-reimbursable component. There is no risk of having projects that will not be ready by August 2026,” added Dragos Pislaru.