Ilie Bolojan says that state secretaries and ministers will be revoked if Romania loses money from the PNRR
The Government of Romania. Collage: Ion Mateș / Hotnews. Photo: Dreamstime, Shutterstock
Prime Minister Ilie Bolojan asked on Monday the ministries involved in attracting money from the PNRR to accelerate the necessary reforms and investments until the August 31 deadline, according to a Government statement. According to him, Bolojan requested that there be no more delays regarding the payment of invoices for the works carried out within the projects. Otherwise, “responsibility will be political”, the head of the Executive said on Monday, during an interministerial committee where the PNRR status was analyzed.
According to the statement, the loss of European funds will have direct consequences on the political and administrative leadership.
“Responsibility for failure to fulfill commitments will be of two categories. There will be political responsibility for ministers and secretaries of state. I am also referring to dismissal from office in the event that Romania loses money from the PNRR. In the case of directors and staff from the administration, it is not necessary to see that they receive more European funds if our country loses money”, declared Ilie Bolojan.
The interministerial committee analyzed the arrears from payment requests 3 and 4, sent by the Government to the European Commission, as well as those related to payment requests 5 and 6, which are to be sent in the next period.
Dragoș Pîslaru: Each ministry will have to send updated data by the end of the week
For his part, the Minister of Investments and European Projects, Dragoș Pîslaru, requested that each ministry transmit, by the end of the week, “updated information on the progress made and a calendar of the activities it has in mind in order to have the most up-to-date status of the implementation”.
“If last year we increased the absorption from PNRR from approximately 4 billion euros to over 10.5 billion euros, in the next six months we have to move to an even more intense pace to double this amount”, Minister Pîslaru also stated.
On behalf of the Ministry of Finance, State Secretary Florin Zaharia stated that the necessary funds for Romania's contribution to the PNRR projects are and will be available.
According to him, the budget for 2026 will include amounts approximately 70% higher than those of the previous year, which will raise the level of national co-financing to approximately 73 billion lei.
The meeting was also attended by Deputy Prime Ministers Oana Gheorghiu and Marian Neacșu, ministers and secretaries of state from the ministries that have the capacity of coordinators of reforms and investments, members and permanent guests of the PNRR Interministerial Coordination Committee.
The last payment request has a deadline of September 30
According to the Government, Romania has a total of 6 payment requests, and the last 2 payment requests (5 and 6) will be submitted in 2026, with the final payment request having as the maximum submission deadline September 30, 2026.
Payment request no. 5 will contain a number of 28 targets and milestones related to the non-reimbursable financial assistance component, and payment request 6 will have a number of 151 targets and milestones corresponding to both the non-reimbursable and reimbursable financial assistance components.
Until now, Romania has exceeded more than half of the total PNRR value, respectively 50.08%. Thus, Romania received a total of 10.7 billion euros, of which 6.4 billion euros for the non-reimbursable financial assistance component and 4.3 billion euros for the reimbursable financial assistance component, the Government stated.
The amounts include the pre-financing and the amounts collected for the Payment Request no. 1, for Payment Request no. 2, and partially for Payment Request no. 3.
