Financiarul

The European Commission approved five projects for Romania financed from European funds, said on Tuesday PM Emil Boc.

‘Five projects have been approved in the road, railways and maritime transport sectors. Two of them refer to the Cernavoda-Constanta motorway and the by-road Constanta.

The projects have already been approved at the technical level of the European Commission and have been submitted to the European commissioner for regional policies pending signing,’ said Emil Boc.

The Romanian premier stressed that one of the Government’s priority is the rapid organisation of auctions for the spending of European funds.

‘This means that we will first monitor and check up the way in which local authorities are organizing the auctions in view to the enforcement of the European projects. Practically, 75 percent of the projects which have to be implemented belong to local administrations and the private environment,’ explained Boc.

The European Commission has also approved 11 major projects from the environmental field, totally worth 1.1 billion euros, said Emil Boc.

‘Romania has been approved by the European Commission 11 major projects from the field of environment for the infrastructure of water sewerage, the treatment of residual water, waste management.

Romania was approved the largest number of major projects for the 2007-2013 period,’ said the Romanian Premier Emil Boc.

We expect, following the stepping up of the processes of approval of projects, and the approval of six out of seven sectoral operational programmes, this component of direct payment to beneficiaries to increase significantly in the second half of the year, said Emil Boc.

We’ve streamlined bureaucracy and reduced the number of documents necessary for the submission of a project on European funds in order to encourage the submission of projects, said Boc.

According to Boc, the value of the payment to beneficiaries of the signed contracts doubled during our ruling, reaching 290 million euros, said on Tuesday PM Boc.

‘This means double as against 145 million euros, the overall amount over 2007-2008, ‘ said Boc.

‘The number of approved EU-funded contracts or the number of the payments made have doubled or even trebled, said Emil Boc.

According to Emil Boc, compared to the period ahead of the takeover of the mandate by the incumbent Government, the number of approved projects grew fivefold, from 420 at the takeover of the mandate to 2,154 at present.

From the viewpoint of their value, they grew more 86 percent, from 2.1 billion euros to 3.7 billion euros.