Romania accepted the 10 pc financial corrections requested by Brussels officials.
The European Commission (EC) decided to unblock the payments for the Operational Sectorial Programme (POS) Environment, which it interrupted in July, the EC Representation in Romania announced in a press release. “The decision made today (Wednesday) means that refund demands for the projects associated with this programme will be compensated now. We salute the clear improvements of the management and control systems, which led to the decision to unblock the programme, said Shirin Wheeler, spokeswoman of the European commissioner for Regional Policy, Johannes Hahn.“Romanian authorities also accepted our request for 10 pc financial corrections. This means that we consider now that the system is capable of tracing and preventing especially the conflicting interests, which represented a key issue. We expect progresses in the other three blocked programmes, in order to resume payments,” Shirin Wheeler added.The 10 pc financial corrections were proposed in August 2012 for the contracts signed before October 2011, in order to cover the sums that should not have been paid because of irregularities. “This money may be used in the same programme, but for new, healthy projects,” added the source.The government passed Tuesday a decision that creates conditions for resuming external payments from the European funds allotted to Romania through the Regional Operational Programme 2007-2013 (POR). The regulation, initiated by the Ministry of Public Finance and the Ministry of Regional Development and Tourism refers to three priority axes of POR, but has effects for the entire programme. The government decision provides the calculation methodology for the sums that represent the financial corrections requested by the European Commission for the Priority Axes 1, 3 and 5.
