Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu coordinated for the first time today, June 27, the meeting of the Interministerial Coordination Committee of the National Recovery and Resilience Plan, a working structure that brings together all the ministries responsible for fulfilling the commitments made by the Government under the National Recovery and Resilience Plan.
The meeting reviewed the targets and milestones to be met for the submission of payment requests 3 and 4, as well as the progress made to update the NRRP to include the RePowerEU chapter.
The Prime Minister called for compliance with the deadlines set by the ministries and the Government for the implementation of reforms and investments.
„This Government is very much about reforms and the economy. The good news we received today from the European Commission, which approved the partially positive preliminary assessment of the second payment request, encourages and empowers us to move forward. And we will pursue our bold objectives. The reform of the public pension system is one of them. What we started yesterday in Parliament, the elimination of special pensions for senators and deputies, we will continue in the coming period to close this chapter as soon as possible, as Romanians naturally expect from the Government and the governing coalition”, said Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu.
The European Commission has today endorsed a positive preliminary assessment of part of the milestones and targets linked to Romania’s second payment request under the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF), the key instrument at the heart of NextGenerationEU.
On 16 December 2022, Romania submitted to the Commission a payment request based on the 49 milestones and 2 targets set out in the Council Implementing Decision for the second payment worth EUR 3,227,690,000, of which EUR 2,147,490,000 consists of grants and EUR 1,080,200,000 of loans. After looking at the evidence provided by the Romanian authorities, the Commission considered 47 milestones and 2 targets out of the 49 milestones and 2 targets to be satisfactorily fulfilled.
The Commission has found that two milestones related to energy investments (specifically, milestone 129 and milestone 133) have not been satisfactorily fulfilled. The Commission acknowledges the first steps already taken by Romania to fulfil these outstanding milestones, though important work remains to be done. The Commission is therefore activating the ‘payment suspension’ procedure, under Article 24(6) of the RRF Regulation. This procedure gives Member States additional time (6 months) to fulfil the outstanding milestones, while receiving a partial payment linked to the milestones and targets that have been satisfactorily fulfilled.
