Extraordinary government meeting, the last one before the no-confidence motion. What normative acts will be adopted

The government meets on Monday, from 18:00, in an extraordinary meeting, to adopt several emergency ordinances, one day before the censure motion against the Executive led by Ilie Bolojan. The agenda has not yet been established, but with certainty two emergency ordinances will be adopted, announced on Thursday by the Prime Minister, to facilitate the absorption of European funds from the PNRR.

Prime Minister Ilie Bolojan announced on Thursday, April 30, that the Government will adopt two emergency ordinances on Monday through which additional mechanisms will be created to facilitate the absorption of European funds from the PNRR, as the investments and reforms undertaken by Romania before the European Commission must be completed by August 31, 2026.

The two GEO drafts were analyzed on Thursday, in the first reading, and were in the meantime put up for public debate on the website of the Ministry of Finance.

Program of 10 billion lei – interest-free loans

The first draft ordinance, Bolojan said on Thursday, is linked to a funding mechanism that will allow payments to be made immediately to the beneficiaries through a mechanism made available by the Ministry of Finance.

“Beneficiaries receive their amounts immediately, and the closing of these payments through the ministries that are responsible for absorbing European funds will be made to the Ministry of Finance after going through the normal procedures. Because today these procedures are slow, many are delayed, and the ministries, due to a low administrative capacity or the complexity of these settlements, fail to make the settlements in an operative formula,” said Bolojan.

The government later announced that this emergency ordinance proposes the establishment of a temporary financing mechanism, by granting interest-free loans to local authorities, for projects at an advanced stage of implementation.

The mechanism temporarily uses the available amounts from the loan component of the PNRR, without attracting additional resources from the financial markets and at no cost to the beneficiary local authorities.

The total ceiling of the program is up to 10 billion lei, with the potential to support a portfolio of projects totaling approximately 46 billion lei, of which 34.4 billion lei are represented by eligible expenses.

Loans do not replace European funds and do not represent permanent expenses. They will be temporary in nature and will function as a bridge-credit mechanism to maintain the pace of implementation.

Another 2 billion lei from the Treasury for “ineligible expenses”

The second emergency ordinance project, announced on Thursday by Prime Minister Bolojan, “is a mechanism to grant loans so that, in situations where local authorities have ineligible expenses to cover which, either due to lack of financial capacity or due to reaching the loan threshold, they can no longer contract from the private markets, they can do so through the Treasury.

“We will make available 2 billion lei so that the local authorities can co-finance these expenses in such a way that the projects can be completed by the end of August,” said Prime Minister Ilie Bolojan.

The government later detailed that this emergency ordinance introduces measures to support local communities to complete projects financed by external non-reimbursable funds from the European Union and European donors, within the framework of intergovernmental programs.

The Minister of Investments and European Projects, Dragoș Pîslaru, stated on Thursday in the same Government conference, that the two emergency ordinances come in the context where, on the investment side, “we are in a bad position with the payments made on the PNRR”.

According to him, hundreds of town halls that currently have delayed transfer requests in the ministries – for reasons of administrative capacity – will be able to have this maximum simplification and financial instrument to draw the money directly to pay their builders, to be able to pay for the purchases they need so that we can tick off the targets in the PNRR.