European Union funds designed to boost economic growth are failing to reach the bloc’s poorest countries, which are increasingly at risk of losing billions of euros in subsidies,” says Financial Times in a piece entitled Growth funds fail to reach poor countries.
“Romania, the EU’s second-poorest country, has so far absorbed only 3.7 per cent of the EUR 19bn in EU money allocated to it for the 2007-13 budgeting period,” says the piece
If the money is not spent by 2015, it returns to the EU budget “leaving Bulgaria and Romania at particular risk of forfeiting ‘their’ entitlement of European subsidies,” says the piece.
The move made by Bulgaria of appointing a minister to oversee the absorption of structural funds has been emulated by Bucharest.
“A spokeswoman for Romania’s European affairs ministry said the low absorption rate was due to lack of capacity in the public administration, applicants struggling to meet stringent EU rules, and lack of financing for the projects nationally,” says FT.
Otilia Haraga