Romania may be earmarked fewer grants under the Resilience facility - namely the EUR 14.2 bln amount could be slashed by EUR 2 bln - according to the statements made by the minister of European Projects Dan Vilceanu on January 27, G4media.ro reported.

He mentioned an adjustment mechanism built in the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR), under which a stronger than expected GDP increase in 2021 (7%) would result in fewer grants extended to the country.

The size of the adjustment is, however, disproportionate compared to the way the existence of the mechanism surfaced - in an unannounced press briefing months after the endorsement of the PNRR by the European Commission.

According to minister Vilceanu, the mechanism is built in PNRR - and not in the Resilience Facility. Therefore, it can be reasonably assumed that it resulted from negotiations.

The author of the PNRR, Cristian Ghinea (Save Romania Union - no longer ruling), has not commented so far on this situation. Instead, he elaborated in an interview given to Libertatea on January 31 on another hot topic - the public pension reforms.

The senior ruling Social Democratic Party refuses to accept the 9.4%-of-GDP cap on the pension system inked in PNRR. Ghinea claims PSD is, in fact, protecting the so-called "special pensions" of the nomenklatura members - while not speaking about the legal deadlock in the process of abolishing this category of pensions.

The PNRR targets and milestones include Romania's commitment to abolish the special pensions, an accomplishment the center-right coalition failed several times for various reasons, the lack of political will being one of them.

Romania is the victim of its own success, former prime minister Florin Citu currently the leader of the junior ruling Liberal (PNL) party, commented in regard to the EUR 2 bln grants slashed from the country's Resilience Facility. On a very ambiguous note, he commented: "no money is lost, you will see that everything is adjusted, there is a procedure that will be followed," News.ro reported.

(Photo: Marian Vejcik/ Dreamstime)

iulian@romania-insider.com