The European Commission plans to increase the cohesion funds allotted to Romania by 8% in the 2021-2027 financial exercise, to EUR 27.2 billion.

Romania thus received the highest increase in EU funds of all member states while the budgets for countries such as Hungary and Poland were cut significantly, according to MEP Siegfried Muresan.

“Although we had the weakest EU fund absorption in EU, the European Commission gives us another chance and increases the cohesion funds for our country,” Muresan wrote in a Facebook post.

He warns, however, that further derails related to respecting the rule of law and European values may lead to EU fund cuts as shown by the proposed allotments for Hungary and Poland, who lost almost a quarter of the cohesion funds compared to the current financial exercise.

The EU budget for 2021-2027 is expected to increase from EUR 1,000 billion to EUR 1,100 billion, despite Britain’s exit from the EU, local Agerpres reported. The European Commission allotted EUR 374 billion for financing the cohesion policy, the highest allotment of all EU programmes, according to Corina Cretu, the European Commissioner for Regional Development.

editor@romania-insider.com