Romania’s EU Funds Bet Awaits Brussels

Romania’s interim EU funds minister, Dragoș Pîslaru, says Bucharest will collect more than 90% of the grants available under its EU recovery plan (EVZ, Curs de Guvernare). That is the political claim. The cash position is different.

As of 1 September, Romania had received about €13 billion from a plan worth €20.1 billion, or roughly 64% (Gândul, Aktual24). To get from 64% to 90%, Bucharest needs Brussels to approve billions more. That approval has not yet been given.

The money comes from the RRF, the Recovery and Resilience Facility, the EU’s post-pandemic fund. It does not pay member states simply because they wrote a plan, signed contracts, or announced projects. It pays when agreed reforms and investments are completed and verified (European Commission).

That distinction matters for Malta too, because EU money is often spoken about locally as if allocation and payment were the same thing. They are not. As we reported on Sunday, Romania’s implementation period ended on 31 August, with interim Prime Minister Ilie Bolojan acknowledging that missed reforms had already cost the country hundreds of millions.

Two Requests, No Cheques

Pîslaru’s 90.58% figure rests on two payment requests that are still unresolved. Request 5 was filed on 14 August and is worth €2.84 billion gross (Agerpres, Mediafax). Pîslaru said the Commission’s preliminary decision could take around two months (RFI România). Request 6, the final request, is expected by 30 September (Profit.ro). It has not yet been filed.

Filing a request is not the same as receiving a cheque. The money moves only after three steps: the Commission checks whether the promised reform steps and measurable targets were delivered, EU finance officials review that assessment, and Brussels signs the payment decision (EUR-Lex).

Romania’s 90% figure counts what the government hopes will survive that process. The Commission has not said yes.

Wage Law and Coal

Romania already has a fair idea of some of the money it will lose. Bolojan said the country forfeited €770 million because Parliament failed to pass a unified public-sector wage law, a reform Brussels had expressly required. He blamed PSD, the largest party, for blocking it (HotNews, Euronews).

That €770 million is Bolojan’s domestic estimate. The formal deduction will come from the Commission’s final assessment.

Coal is the second risk. Romania had agreed to shut down lignite-fired power units as a decarbonisation milestone. Instead, Parliament voted to keep plants at Turceni and Craiova running, and the Commission said it would review whether the milestone could still be treated as fulfilled (Romania Insider, Agerpres).

Bolojan put that exposure at about €100 million (Economica). The coal case is more complicated than the wage law because it tests whether a milestone Brussels once accepted as delivered can be reversed later by a parliamentary vote.

Governments Count Plans, Brussels Counts Delivery

This gap between political accounting and verified cash is not peculiar to Bucharest. Italy’s government reported €153.2 billion received and 366 milestones achieved, but the Corte dei conti, Italy’s national auditor, found only 12.4% of projects completed by value, with more than €75 billion still being built (Struttura di missione PNRR, LavoriPubblici.it).

Even Spain, the EU’s strongest performer, saw the Commission hold back €537 million from its sixth payment because some objectives were unfinished (El País).

The pattern is clear enough. Governments count expected payments before Brussels has finished checking delivery. Romania’s problem is sharper because its failures on wages and coal are larger, and because it has less room to absorb the loss.

Fitch rates Romania at BBB- with a negative outlook (Fitch). Any EU grants that disappear have to be replaced by borrowing by the Romanian state at that rating, which means dearer money. The cost then moves from Brussels’ balance sheet to Romanian taxpayers, public services, and a budget already running one of the EU’s largest deficits.

Romania’s risk is no longer whether it can announce EU money. It is whether missing grants have to be replaced with costlier debt. The Commission’s assessment of requests 5 and 6 will decide the final amount.