Romanian PM: All EU-Funded Projects Awarded Through Public Auctions Will Be Checked

A press release by the Structural Instrument Coordination Authority (ACIS) said the prime minister’s instructions to check the implementation of every current project co-financed from structural and cohesion funds, and to stop sending expense statements and refund requests to the European Commission, for a while, aims to protect Romania’s financial allowance.

„Through this preventive measure, the Government is taking some time to run additional checks on the public procurement procedures run for the projects, and to apply financial corrections, in case violations of community and national rules are revealed,” says the press release.

According to community regulations, when problems are identified and financial corrections applied by the national structures in charge, the European funds in question may be reused for other eligible projects, the press release adds.

President Traian Basescu said Wednesday that he has asked the Government not to send any more invoices to Brussels for refunds, for the time being, with the exception of bills for agriculture projects.

In early July, MEDIAFAX informed that the Government will refund the cost of a project financed with EU funds only after an inspection of the way the contract was awarded, cutting 2%-100% of the returned amount if the investigation reveals irregularities, which means a delay of up to six months for the refund.

The decision was taken then through an emergency ordinance.

People close to the matter told MEDIAFAX recently that the Government is considering reducing the state ceiling to pre-finance EU-funded projects from 30% to about 15% of the contract’s value, after it noticed that many of the companies which contract EU funds fail to provide documents to justify how they used the money.