(BRUSSELS) - The European Commission has given Romania until December 16 to resolve outstanding concerns about its agricultural subsidies system, or face losing millions of euros in farm aid.

"They have one final chance to avoid provisionally losing a quarter of their farm payments," said agricultural affairs spokesman Michael Mann.

"We are talking about a round figure of about 180 million euros (264 million dollars) that would possibly be witheld by Brussels," he warned.

That included around 110 million euros in farm subsidies plus 70 million euros for rural development.

On October 10, the EU's executive body first threatened to withhold the aid unless Bucharest resolved "serious problems" in the way it manages and controls the aid it allocates to farmers.

Brussels also insisted that Romania install computer systems to feed in results of on-the-spot checks on farms and the calculation of money paid to farmers.

Mann said the Romanians had "made good progress" but that one of the computer systems was still deficient.

"If by the 16th of December they have got rid of the deficiencies in the IT system, then we will be able to stop the procedure," he said.

He added: "It doesn't mean that the farmers lose out, it means the Romanians have to pay them rather than us paying them."

Romania, which joined the European Union along with Bulgaria on January 1, was to receive 443 million euros of EU agricultural aid this year.

When it joined, Romania was still considered to have inadequate control over its farm aid, food safety problems, and shortfalls in the fight against corruption, and was to remain under Commission surveillance for three years.

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