About 100 companies in Romania will have to pay back a part or all the European funds accessed in recent year for various projects.

The state will ask these firms to give back about EUR 20 million, according to some unofficial estimates cited by Startupcafe.ro.

According to the European Funds Ministry, these companies took EU funds declaring they were small and medium companies (SMEs) while in reality they were big companies. The financial corrections come as the end of 2015 marks the closing of the 2007-2013 programming period for EU funds.

The European Commission made an audit of the investment projects financed through the Operational Programme Increase of Economic Competitiveness in February and August this year and found that some of the companies that have accessed this program haven’t respected the size criteria.

editor@romania-insider.com