There is a shortage of 10,000 prison places in Romania, and the budgetary resources do not allow building a new prison, said the Minister of Justice Robert Cazanciuc.

"We will continue to make small investments in certain prisons. Such a location as a prison does not allow an extension, or to increase the accommodation capacity. We have no choice but to build prisons 'from scratch', on the Ministry of Justice or the National Administration of Penitentiaries’ properties. It's a huge budgetary effort. We cannot sustain it from the national resources, that's why we turned to the European Commission," said Cazanciuc, cited by local Mediafax.

The cost of building a prison is at least EUR 60-80 million, said the Justice Minister, following talks with British, American, French and Spanish partners.

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