On Thursday, September 15, the European Commission approved the first payment request submitted by Romania under the PNRR, after analyzing and finding that our country has achieved the 21 benchmarks and targets adopted in this regard. Romania will receive EUR 2.6 billion, of which EUR 1.8 billion in grants and EUR 0.8 billion in loans.

The first payment request covers 21 milestones that had to be completed by December 31, 2021

On 31 May 2022, Romania submitted a request to the Commission for payment based on the achievement of 21 milestones and targets selected in the Council Decision on the implementation of the first tranche.

These include reforms on sustainable transport, decarbonisation, road safety, the electricity market, replacing coal in the energy balance, improving tax administration processes, strengthening the fight against corruption, reforming the compulsory education system to prevent and reduce early school leaving and the audit system. and Romania’s monitoring of the implementation of the Recovery and Resilience Mechanism.

In its statement, the Romanian authorities provided detailed and comprehensive evidence of the implementation of the 21 stages. The commission analyzed this information in detail before presenting a preliminary positive assessment of the payment request.

Romania has already collected EUR 3.7 billion from the PNRR

Romania’s National Recovery and Resilience Plan includes a wide range of investment and reform measures grouped into 15 thematic components.

It amounts to 29.2 billion euros in the form of grants and loans, of which 13% (3.7 billion euros) have already been paid to Romania as pre-financing.

Payments under the MRR are performance-based and depend on whether member countries implement the investments and reforms outlined in their recovery and resilience plans.

When Romania will receive 2.6 billion euros

The European Commission sent the Economic and Financial Committee (CEF) its preliminary positive assessment of Romania’s implementation of the necessary steps for this payment, requesting its opinion.

The Commission will take into account the CEF opinion to be issued for a maximum of four weeks.

Following the opinion of the CEF, the Commission will take a final decision on the payment of the financial contribution in accordance with the verification procedure through the comitology committee. After the decision of the Commission, the payment will be made in favor of Romania.

The Commission will assess Romania’s requests for additional payments against the benchmarks and targets set out in the Council’s implementation decision, reflecting progress in implementing investments and reforms.

Amounts paid to Member States are published in the Recovery and Resilience Scoreboard, which demonstrates progress in implementing national recovery and resilience plans in a transparent manner.

How much money has Romania received from PNRR so far and what are the delays we have

For the implementation of the PNRR, the first money received by Romania, namely pre-financing in the amount of 13% of the allocated budget, was for the approval of this plan by the European Commission.

More precisely, Romania collected two tranches of pre-financing with a total value of approx. 3.79 billion eurosin December 2021 and January 2022.

So much money from the PNRR is still in Romanian treasury accounts.

In addition, we had to achieve the benchmarks and targets defined in the PNRR, after which we had to submit requests for payment.

I. First payment request from PNRR was made by Romania at the end of May 2022, and it is related to the main milestones and targets to be implemented by December 31, 2021.

The Ministry of Investment, led by Marcel Bolosh, reports that this payment request, analyzed with representatives of the European Commission in Brussels on May 10-12, includes both non-refundable support of 2,037,146,414 euros and support in the form of a loan. in the amount of 907,669.494 euros.

On the other hand, Christian Guinea claims it is just over €2.6 billionbecause 13% should also be deducted from the amount announced by MIPE – the pre-financing already received by Romania.

• I have not received this money yet.

The European executive told G4Media.ro that the first payment request submitted by Romania for the PNRR will not be approved at the end of July, and the assessment has been extended until September.

• “In general, the Commission provides a preliminary assessment of the current application two months after receiving it. In order to ensure sufficient time for the completion of this assessment, the Romanian authorities have decided, in agreement with the European Commission, to extend this period until 16 September. This practice is not unusual,” says the response sent by the European Commission.

Therefore, it should be observed when this money related to the first payment request from PNRR will arrive in the country.

II. Second payment request from PNRR this will be done by MIPE during October this year and is linked to the main milestones and targets to be met in the first and second quarters of 2022.

According to MIPE, the value of the second request is over €3.2 billion, of which €2.14 billion is in grants and over €1 billion in loan financing.

III. The third request for payment from PNRR this will only be done in the first quarter of 2023 and requires the achievement of the main milestones and targets of this quarter, for which Prime Minister Chuke is constantly issuing ultimatums.

Former Minister Cristian Guinea clarified for HotNews.ro that the European Executive Committee will today accept the first payment request submitted to the PNRR.

• “The European Commission will accept the first payment request from the PNRR today, and the money will arrive in October 2022. That’s the delay. But it is not like the governors can rest on their laurels because the delays are piling up and getting worse. That now there are serious things that are difficult to do technically (metro) or politically (special pensions).” This was stated by Christian Guinea on HotNews.ro on Thursday.

Because of all these delays between when the government announces it has implemented the benchmarks, when it sends the payment request to Brussels, the time the European Commission has to consider how to implement the benchmarks, and when the money is actually transferred, It goes without saying that the prime minister’s ultimatums cannot be taken seriously, as this is more of an image game.

• Read more: Chuke Ultimatums to PNRR, Rainwater: How Much Money Collected, What Delays and How Serious