Romania absorbs 90pct of recovery grants, 95pct of recovery loans as 2,000 works unfinished

Caretaker Prime Minister Ilie Bolojan says that Romania has absorbed over 90% of the grants and over 95% of the loans granted under the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR)."Data presented by the Ministry of European Projects show that Romania has managed an absorption of over 90% on the grant component and over 95% on the loan component, and in the coming days all the amounts will be clarified, accurately, after all data are centralised. It is a result that the governments we have had have worked on in these years, but the great pressure was on this last year, in which we made important efforts to unblock the PNRR and to renegotiate targets, milestones, so that Romania does not lose money," Bolojan said on Tuesday, at the presentation of a report on the PNRR implementation.He mentioned that, when he took office, PNRR was a "fully stuck" programme that risked turning into a "major failure". Bolojan added that the government put "order" in PNRR, renegotiated it and started the implementation of the programme, so that important amounts of money would not be lost."Could more have been done? Certainly. First of all, if we started early. If there was political will. And the amounts of money we lost are generated by the Social Democratic Party's sabotage of the public pay law, which leads us not only to losing money, but is an anti-reformist signal and also related to the decrease in credibility towards the markets, towards our European partners," he said.The administration's capacity "leaves something to be desired", given that there were no correct evaluations, and in the case of many programmes there was over-contracting, he said."On Transport side, we signed contracts worth EUR 19.5 billion, although in the almost final phase we had almost EUR 5.5 billion left, which means an important over-contracting, which will have to be covered in the coming years from other European sources or from national budgets," he said.Bolojan estimated that there are still over 2,000 unfinished works. In those settlements, the local governments will have to complete projects by the end of the year from the local budgets."If they do not complete them - I hope we will not get there - starting next year they will also have to pay the money they received until then. But I hope we will not end up in such a situation."According to the prime minister, the implementation of the projects "started late". To these delays were added construction companies "with problems", local administrations with "low" administrative capacity. Future programmes, including SAFE, will have to be carried out at a "more sustained pace", right from the beginning."Every programme, from now on, should be guided by a sense of urgency, from day one. Let's not leave it to the finish line, because that means major efforts, risks of project losses."Bolojan also said that EUR 1.5 billion were allocated under PNRR for the Focsani-Bacau portion of the Moldovan Highway. Another over EUR 1.8 billion were invested in the weatherisation of residential or public buildings (over 4.6 million square metres).Also, over EUR 300 million were earmarked for the development of the government cloud, a platform aimed at the digitalisation of the government, through which more than 30 public institutions are already connected.More than EUR 450 million were allocated for energy and renewable resources (almost 1,000 megawatts).PNRR projects also included equipment for tens of thousands of classrooms or laboratories, all of which totalled EUR 600 million. Adding up to these is aid of over EUR 450 million for vulnerable students in establishments with a high degree of school dropout. Also, over EUR 230 million were spent on the digitalisation of universities.Bolojan added that over 90 kilometres of water and sewerage networks were funded EUR 55 million.Over EUR 300 million were used for 18,000 hectares of forested or reforested land and 130,000 square metres of urban forests.PNRR funding also targeted investments in eight regional hospitals, 1,200 ambulances and 25 neonatal intensive care units, over 2,000 family physician's offices, and 885 housing units for young people from marginalised communities.