Romania submits to European Commission all extended components of its recovery, resilience plan

The Ministry of European Investments and Projects (MIPE) has submitted to the European Commission all the extended components of Romania's National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR), and minister Cristian Ghinea will discuss them in Brussels, April 12-16 April. According to an MIPE press statement released on Monday, some components sent are in a first version, and other components have been modified two or three times to include observations from the European Commission on the previously sent versions. "All countries that have so far submitted plans to the public have submitted the general guidelines or summaries of the plan's components. The summaries of PNRR components adopted by the government are the basis for the extended components - technical documents in the template of the European Commission comprising dozens of pages of documentation, investment details, progress milestones, environmental impact estimates, detailed costs and a classification of investments according to the degree of contribution to the green transition and the digital transition," according to MIPE. The PNRR components are developed by the relevant ministries with assistance from MIPE. At the weekend, the MIPE team sent the drafts for the last three extended components, thus concluding the first stage. For the more advanced components (Transport, Education) MIPE has sent advanced versions that already include improvements worked out with the relevant ministries as a result of a dialogue with the European Commission. Minister of European Investments and Projects Cristian Ghinea underlined that the MIPE team has still three weeks of intense work. "I want to think the entire MIPE team and the extended team from the relevant ministries for their involvement; it is a huge amount of work, over 1000 pages, with many arguments and technical details. (...) I said at the parliamentary debate two months ago that after expressing wishes a cold shower will follow: now we must have clear costs, detailed environmental assessments, detailed targets and milestones. That is not an easy exercise. We have three more weeks of intense work," said Ghinea. Informal work with the European Commission on component development has begun and is taking place in the following stages: MIPE receives from the relevant ministry a first version of the component and uses the commission's template to make certain preliminary comments that should be integrated; after integrating the aspects, MIPE sends the component to the European Commission services together with a PowerPoint presentation in English of the component, at least 48 hours before the presentation; the relevant ministry is invited by MIPE to a videoconference with the EC services (every Tuesday and Thursday) to present the component and to answer the commission's first questions on substance; after about five working days, the commission sends its first written comments on the submitted component and suggests that Romania incorporate some of these comments in the revised form of the component; after the relevant ministry submits the revised component, the commission calls a technical meeting of experts where proposed reforms and investment are discussed in detail; at the third revision, a final form of the component with the related technical annexes is submitted taking into account the negotiations between the commission and MIPE on the important aspects of each component. Ghinea is scheduled today to meet European Commissioner for Competition Margrethe Vestager, European Commissioner for Transport Adina Valean, and European Commissioner for Cohesion and Reforms Elisa Ferreira. AGERPRES (RO - author: George Coman, editor: Oana Tilica; EN - author: Corneliu-Aurelian Colceriu, editor: Cristina Zaharia)