​Prime Minister Nicolae Chuke revealed on Tuesday that some targets and milestones in the PNRR would not be met by September 15, as he had previously ordered, so he issued a new ultimatum to ministers: September 21. They will definitely not be fulfilled even then because the allocation of 5G licenses, one of the stages, cannot be done so quickly. How serious are these delays and how much money has been raised so far?

Why Chuke’s ultimatums cannot be taken seriously: milestones cannot be achieved when the prime minister wants

Romania has 24 milestones and targets to achieve related to the 3rd quarter of this year, which ends at the end of September, and the exact list was recently sent to HotNews.ro by the Ministry of European Investments and Projects (MIPE).

• LIST OF 24 PNRR MILESTONES AND GOALS

Viewing this list shows serious delays. Certainly, some of these milestones will not be achieved even by September 21, the new deadline set by Chuke. Why

Because it is technically impossible to assign the so-called 5G licenses (one of the milestones) until then, given that The government has only now approved the starting prices auction

ANCOM officials expect the initial bids to be submitted on October 27, and the completion of the auction and the receipt of the first money in the budget could happen sometime between November and December 2022.

It seems that even the Ministry of Development has not yet realized this integrated national eVelo platform and smartphone appanother milestone that should have been reached this quarter.

• HotNews.ro contacted the Ministry of Development headed by Attila Ceke 3 days ago for clarification on the stage of implementation of this stage, but we have not received an answer so far.

How serious are these delays? Explanation of MIPE

The Ministry of European Investments and Projects, headed by Marcel Bolosh, somehow explained in a previous answer to HotNews.ro why such delays are still allowed in the PNRR, despite Prime Minister Chuke’s ultimatums.

• “To meet the September targets and milestones, a payment request will be submitted in the first quarter of 2023.
• If all the milestones and targets associated with the payment request have not been satisfactorily achieved, the European Commission may order a partial payment with a suspension of the difference related to the unmet targets and milestones.
• In this situation, the Member State concerned has six months to take the necessary measures to ensure the fulfillment of the milestones/targets that were initially considered unfulfilled.”, MIPE told HotNews.ro.

In other words, until the request for payment to meet these milestones is in place before the first quarter of 2023, ministers can afford to delay.

Christian Guinea: The real problem will be when we want to ask for money

On Thursday, HotNews.ro contacted Cristian Ginea, former Minister of European Funds of the USR, who negotiated the PNRR with the European Executive, explained the mechanism for requests for payment from the PNRR and the current problems.

• “The milestones should be ready when the official deadline comes for Romania to request payment. de facto we are late with payment requests. So the real problem comes when we want to ask for money.” Christian Guinea told HotNews.ro about it.

In the explanatory video clip, it explains that when a Member State considers that it has reached the milestones and deadlines for a given quarter, it makes a payment request to the European Commission. The European executive has 2 months to analyze and respond, and if the response is positive, the money goes into the country.

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 specifically, Romania received two pre-financing tranches with a total value of approximately €3.79 billion in 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, Cristian Guinea claims that it is only more than 2.6 billion euros, because 13% should be deducted from the amount announced by MIPE – the previous funding that Romania already received.

• 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).” Christian Guinea also stated for HotNews.ro.

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.