The European Commission approved, on Tuesday, the modification of Romania’s National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR), worth 28.5 billion euros, the Ministry of European Funds reported. In a post on Facebook, Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu states that “The Government honored the promise made to the Romanians, to remove from the PNRR the ceiling of 9.4% of GDP regarding pension expenses. “With the approval of the PNRR amendment, we will definitively get rid of the nightmare cynically introduced in the USR document, which would have led to the freezing of the pension point until 2070”, says Ciolacu.
“The European Commission officially confirms that we honored the promise made to the Romanians, to remove from the PNRR the ceiling of 9.4% of GDP regarding pension expenses. With the approval of the amendment to Romania’s National Recovery and Resilience Plan, as of today we definitively get rid of the nightmare cynically introduced in the USR document, which would have led to the freezing of the pension point until 2070”, says the Prime Minister.
Marcel Ciolacu states that “this is precisely why they fought to pass the new pension law through Parliament, validated as sustainable in the long term by the experts of the World Bank and the European Commission, a law that provides justice for millions of pensioners”.
“In this way, we remove the inequities between pensioners who have contributed and worked the same and we ensure the guarantee that pensioners’ incomes will be able to increase in the future, legitimately correlated with the country’s economic performance. This is one of my essential objectives in the prime minister’s mandate: that the economic growth of Romania reaches mainly the Romanians who have the greatest need to protect the standard of living!”, says Ciolacu.
MIPE: In the modified form, the PNRR also includes the REPowerEU chapter
The European Commission approved Romania’s National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR), which, in its modified form, also includes the REPowerEU chapter, according to the Ministry of European Funds. Adrian Câciu conveyed that the limitation of 9.4% of GDP regarding the public pension system is no longer found in the approved amendment.
The PNRR allocation is currently 28.5 billion euros (14.9 billion euros in the form of loans, 13.6 billion euros in the form of grants) and covers 66 reforms and 111 investments.
“A great success for Romania and for the correct management and prioritization of PNRR investments. We repositioned the objectives of the Plan to accelerate the green, digital transition, healthcare, public employment services and social protection, transport, education and, last but not least, taxation. We are cautious with state money, but prompt in accessing European funds and developing Romania. I thank the colleagues from MIPE who worked ceaselessly to achieve this goal, and to those who commented from the sidelines and irresponsibly predicted the collapse, jeopardizing our position in front of external partners, I say only this: the limitation of 9.4% of GDP regarding the public pension system is no longer found in the amendment approved today, a sign that the Government’s measures and our word given to the Commission have the necessary and sufficient credibility that the trajectory Romania is on is one of sustainable and responsible construction”, Adrian declared Căciu, Minister of Investments and European Projects.
Through REPowerEU, Romania will benefit from additional non-refundable funds worth 1.4 billion euros. The REPowerEU chapter includes two new reforms and seven investments that focus on accelerating the production of green energy, increasing the energy efficiency of buildings and reskilling and improving the workforce in the field of green energy generation.
Romania’s amended plan places a strong emphasis on the green transition, allocating 44.1% (compared to 41% in the original plan) of available funds for measures supporting climate objectives. At the same time, the allocation of funds for the digital transition of the country increases, from 20.5% to 21.8%, MIPE states.
The revised plan includes the changes to the PNRR following the application of Article 11 paragraph (2) of the Regulation establishing the Recovery and Resilience Mechanism, which led to the reduction of the allocation of the grant component by 2.11 billion euros. Also included are adjustments generated by the increase in the prices of construction materials and the interruption of supply chains. At the same time, the limitation of 9.4% of GDP regarding the public pension system will no longer be found in the new Plan.
At the beginning of December, the revision of Romania’s National Recovery and Resilience Plan will be approved within ECOFIN – the Council of Finance Ministers, and then a new implementation decision (CID) will be issued by the Council of the European Union.
Editor: Loredana Bancas
