Romania's National Recovery and Resilience Plan is 95% already negotiated with the European Commission and will certainly be approved "in the next period," Romania's prime minister Florin Citu stated on July 29 at the headquarters of the Ministry of Finance, Bursa.ro reported.

He thus addressed concerns expressed by local media (Newsweek), which publishes leaked documents related to the ongoing negotiations between the government and the Commission.

Newsweek also quotes the German daily Die Welt that, as part of a broader comment dedicated to the progress of the national Resilience Reports across Europe, criticises Romania's report in still cautious terms.

"The gaps [lack of clarifications] were apparently so large […] that the Romanian government had to officially request the Commission to extend the deadline for the assessment to the end of September. However, the step is likely to have been preceded by a warning from Brussels that the Commission could reject the plan without the additional information," the German daily reads.

The daily admits that the situation is even worse in at least four other countries: Bulgaria and the Netherlands haven't yet submitted their Resilience Plans due to internal political crises, while Poland and Hungary risk losing the funds because of their actions in the area of the rule of law violating the European Union's recommendations.

As for the documents published by Newsweek, they are not dated.

The minister of investments and European projects, Cristian Ghinea, never denied that negotiations are underway to clarify expenses included in the document.

iulian@romania-insider.com

(Photo source: Gov.ro)