EXCLUSIVE: Romanian Govt To Improve EU Fund Absorption Via Well-Paid Experts, Exacting Contracts

The document, obtained by MEDIAFAX and sent by the Government to the EC for approval, presents the known issues with community fund absorption, their proposed solutions and the deadlines by which the decisions would be enacted. One of the problems identified by the Government and included in the document is the risk that the EC might "disengage" the funds starting with December 31, 2011, in the absence of the rigorous long-term planning of contract targets, payments and reports on spending for the Executive in Brussels, together with stricter monitoring of these targets.

Other problems are the limited capacity, given current human resources, of managing authorities and intermediary bodies to carry out procedures for project evaluation and approval, and to check refund requests in the provided timeline (because of the migration of experienced staff to the private sector, the freeze on hiring and the imbalance between salaries and duties), the lack of interest on the part of potential beneficiaries for certain Operational Program components, "difficulties" in making strategic decisions to accelerate the absorption of structural and cohesion funds.

The document also mentions delays in refunding the beneficiaries' expenses with certain Operational Program components and the high number of verification, control and audit missions targeting management authorities, which block these bodies' resources.

To solve these issues, by the end of November, the Government will set half-yearly targets by which to sign contracts, pay and report expenses to the EC, until December 31, 2015, for each Operational Program, will conduct monthly checks of the time it takes to verify spending for each program and will allow all vacant positions in managing authorities to be filled. The employees of these bodies will be remunerated according to a special system, "motivating and adapted to the complexity of their work," to be set through the unitary wage law as of January 1, 2011.

Another problem acknowledged in the document is the difficulty entrepreneurs have in providing co-financing for EU projects, which has led to withdrawn financing applications, canceled contracts and delays. To avoid such problems in the future, the Government will require financing applications to include a letter of guarantee from a bank, certifying the contractor's ability to provide co-financing. To avoid long, unjustified delays in implementing EU projects, managing authorities will be able to annul the contracts late by more than 6-9 months.

By the end of January 2011, if contracts are not signed for late projects, the EC will be asked to reallocate the funds towards more "dynamic" fields, as measured according to absorption capacity, or to other Operational Programs. The Government also plans to allow public institutions to hire and pay experts for a determined period, drawing the funds from the budget of the project in question.

By end-December, the Executive will develop a mechanism to ensure that the calendar and activities carried out by the responsible authorities (Audit Authority, Anti-Fraud Department, Certification and Payment Authority, Minister/Prime Minister Control Corp) are correlated and do not overlap. Directives will be issued between December 2010 and January 2011 to guarantee that the rules on public purchases are applied uniformly.

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