EU officials warn with safeguard clause activation over Romania agriculture

Romania might lose an important part of the European agriculture subsidies as next week Agriculture Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel will present a report on audits made over the activity of of the Agriculture payment agencies in both Romania and Bulgaria.

According to the BBC, the report signals a series of deficiencies in the functioning of the institutions and will give Romania a month to solve them.

The European Commission should have already taken a decision regarding the safeguarding clause, which translates into a 25% cut of European subsidies for agriculture, in September.

However, the Commission decided to postpone the decision and according to an insider source, next week Romania will receive a serious warning. BBC, quoted by Romanian monitoring agency Rador, informs that this time EU officials might activate the threatening safeguarding clause.

Romania should receive almost 8 billion euro for agriculture alone by August 2013. The money is aimed at modernizing and increasing the competitiveness of the Romanian agriculture on the European market.