Prosecutors get direct access to ongoing European projects. Dragoș Pîslaru: “They have the complete route of the money at their disposal”

Dragoș Pîslaru, the Minister of Investments and European Projects, announced that he signed the collaboration protocols with the European Public Prosecutor's Office, the National Anti-Corruption Directorate and the Department for the Fight Against Fraud through which they receive direct and complete access to the MySMIS database, which contains the projects financed by European money.

MySMIS contains all the data on cohesion projects financed by European funds: beneficiaries, contracts, payments, indicators, implementation stage. Through the signed protocols, the prosecutors will have real-time access to these data, without additional documents intended to allow viewing of the data.

“Any suspicion of fraud or an irregularity in a project financed by European money can now be investigated without any bureaucratic delay or slowdown. The investigators have at their disposal the complete route of the money: from contracting to the last payment. This means faster, better-founded investigations and, above all, better control of public money,” wrote Dragoș Pîslaru in a post on Facebook.

The minister claims that every stolen or incorrectly used euro affects the number of completed projects. Pîslaru claims that he insisted that MIPE facilitate access to institutions with competences in investigating fraud with European funds.

“This is the direction I want to further strengthen: more transparency, more control where necessary and zero tolerance for any attempted fraud with European money”, Pîslaru concluded.

Also in the direction of transparency, Minister Pîslaru announced on January 30 that in the future the costs of external trips of the minister and subordinate employees will be public.

The information published on the MIPE website includes both the travel expenses of Minister Dragoș Pîslaru and those of his predecessors in the last five years.

“We are the first ministry to take this initiative because only through transparency can we rebuild the relationship of trust between institutions and citizens”, writes Dragoș Pîslaru.