Romania faces harsh criticism for poor use of EU funds
(BUCHAREST) - Romanian officials faced harsh criticism on Tuesday for failing to take advantage of billions of euros allocated by the European Union to promote the development of this lagging Balkan country.
"Romania's situation is alarming," Violeta Alexandru, the head of the Romanian think-tank Institute for Public Policies (IPP) told a press conference, while presenting the results of four-month research on the issue.
The IPP slammed the "very low" absorption rate of European money earmarked for developing rundown areas and bridging the gap between Romania, the latest country to enter the EU in 2007, and the older members.
It also criticized the "chronic lack of transparency by Romanian authorities in managing these funds".
"Authorities are exclusively interested in spending a bigger share of the European money without really caring about how they will do it and what the result will be," the think-tank said in its report.
It underlined the low use of European funds in the health sector while "new business centres are being built without any real study on their economic utility".
The criticism comes as a heated debate has been raging for days following the release of new figures showing that billions of euros allocated by the EU to contribute to Romania's development are lying idle.
"Who will answer for the disaster? Who will leave the government because Romania has succeeded in using less than 3.5 percent of European funds at its disposal," Romanian journalist Dan Tapalaga wrote in an editorial for the online news site hotnews.ro.
He blamed "corruption, lack of coordination and incompetence", adding to the economic crisis that hampered co-financing by member states.
Bucharest has absorbed only 3.4 percent of the 20-billion euros earmarked by the European Union for the period 2007-2013 (downpayments excluded), Ton van Lierop, spokesman for the European Commissioner for Regional Policy Johannes Hahn, told AFP.
The money can be used to modernize infrastructure, improve job qualifications and promote economic activities, key elements in one of the poorest countries of the European Union.
"We are far behind Bulgaria" which also joined the EU in 2007, the IPP said in its report.
On Saturday, the centre-right Romanian Prime minister Emil Boc himself described as "very bad" the country's absorption rate, which only takes into account the money that has actually been paid for the finished projects.
The opposition has asked for the government to resign over the issue.
NGOs and European experts have called on Romania to create a special ministry charged with coordinating the European cohesion funds in order to improve their impact on the country.
Neighbouring Bulgaria has managed to dramatically improve the implementation of developement-targeted projects after creating such an institution.
The Romanian prime minister's office has declined a request by AFP to comment on this proposal.
"We hope things will improve because this will be crucial when it comes to securing funds in the next EU budget for the period 2014-2020," Alexandru said.