Romania's Liberal Government, headed by prime minister Ludovic Orban, unveiled on November 26 the National Recovery and Resilience Plan.

This document includes the measures proposed to be financed with the EUR 30 billion in soft loans and grants Romania could get under the EU's EUR 750 bln Facility of Recovery and Resilience (FRR).

The document will be subject to public debate in the next period and must be approved by the European Commission by April next year. It pictures the way Romania will use the European money to get out of the crisis, on each of the 12 areas considered a priority, as well as a plan for strengthening and preparing the medical system and the food sector for future crises, Economica.net reported.

The document already stirred criticism from the reformist block USR-PLUS - the Liberals' would-be partners in the ruling coalition expected to take office after the December 6 general elections.

A draft of the document was published by the Ministry of European Funds (MFE) on November 23 and removed shortly afterward.

The main criticism of USR PLUS is that the plan drafted by the PNL Government does not include real reforms and does not meet the EU's objective of financing structural change.

"Where necessary reforms are mentioned in the body of the document, no allocation of funds follows. The plan is superficially designed by MFE and only doubles the funding already allocated through operational programs under the cohesion policy. In other words, where MFE has allotted and spent European money badly, more financing is allocated according to the same logic," USR-PLUS argued in a press release quoted by G4media.ro.

andrei@romania-insider.com

(Photo source: Gov.ro)