Romania, "the last to absorb structural funds in EU"

The World Bank Country Director for Central Europe and the Baltic Countries, Peter Harrold, stated that Romania is on the last place in European Union with regards the absorption of the structural funds.

Speaking on this subject at a symposium organized by the World Bank in Bucharest, he appreciated that the absorption of the European funds should become a priority for the Romanian government.

Romania has the lowest absorption rate of these funds in the European Union and this is absolutely crazy. It should not happen.

"It is essential that the European policy should achieve convergence and one of the key-elements of this process is based on the transfer of money or fees, if you want, from the rich countries to the less developed ones, on this reason there have been established regional and cohesion funds. It is a central element of European policy and Romania simply does not benefit of it at present", Peter Harrold said.

The problem of improving the absorption of European funds by Romania was also approached by the Chief of IMF mission in Romania, Jeffrey Franks.

At the same symposium, he also talked about the necessary measures for economic growth on a medium and long term.

It regards the priority of public investments, privatization or, at least, private sector involvement in large state companies together with improving the regulatory framework

The Chief of European Commission for Romania emphasized the importance of developing functional markets in the field of transport means and energy, including price alignment to the international ones, improving energy efficiency and investing in infrastructure.

Translated by: Cătălina Virvescu
MA Student, MTTLC, Bucharest University