EU halts part of its aid to Romania

(BUCHAREST) - The European Commission has frozen funding to Romania aimed at developing human resources amid concerns over irregularities, a Romanian government spokesman said on Tuesday.

"This is no surprise, the Europe Minister Leonard Orban had already mentioned this possible freeze. We received the official letter Monday night," Dan Suciu told reporters after a government meeting.

He added that an EU mission would travel to Romania next week and submit its findings to Brussels by mid-March.

The Romanian government hopes that a solution will be found before the end of March so that funding may resume soon.

"If the interruption only lasts three weeks there will be no problem either for those working with EU funds, or for the Romanian economy," Suciu said.

The Romanian government insists that unlike suspension, which can only be lifted after six months, an interruption of funding is a lesser penalty, which can be lifted as soon as improvements are enacted.

The European Commission halted funding after the Romanian auditing authority found irregularities in the management of the human resources development programme, worth a total of 3.5 billion euros ($4.6 billion).

Romania, one of the poorest EU countries, can use up to 20 billion euros in European aid between 2007 and 2013 in order to catch up with the more advanced bloc members.

So far barely 6.3 percent of this amount has been used, official figures show.