Businessmen protest: the government takes measures only through declarations / Romanian institutions managing EU funds lack personnel and have bureaucracy issues

Over 100 non governmental organizations, unions and labor organizations send a public letter addressed to the PM in which they warn that Romania risks to lose about 30 billion euro from EU funds because the government is inefficient and public authorities who manage the funds lack personnel and confront bureaucracy issues. Three employees to 1,400 projects, 10 months on the waiting lists to sign contracts – these are just some problems signaled by businessmen in the letter.

The main problems marked:

• it takes too long for authorities to manage the project – it took 10 months to receive an answer after a request made by some citizens
• the contracting procedures take too long – if requests are approved, some wait another 6-7 months to sign contracts
• spent money come in late – in some cases it took more than 4 months
• inability to recover the VAT even though the law stipulates this
• management authorities and intermediary authorities fail to communicate and have a unitary position