The European Commission adopted a proposal to modify the General Regulation in order to extend the 10% top-up until the end of 2007-13 and to give Romania and Slovakia more time to spend their allocations.

The proposal, COM(2013)301, will now be discussed with the European Parliament and the Council. Read the full proposal

Source: European Commission

Measures to help crisis-hit countries to use much needed EU funds have been proposed today by the European Commission. The measures would help these Member States to tackle youth unemployment, to support small and medium sized business and to pay for key infrastructure projects. In the absence of this proposed measure, Cohesion Policy investments for growth could be lost because of a lack of time to spend the money or because of the difficulty of finding national and private co-finance in the current economic climate.

Ex-ante conditionalities are an essential part of the preparations for the next programming period. They represent pre-conditions that all Member States will have to fulfil and are linked to the effective and efficient use of EU funds.  Should ex-ante conditionalities not be fulfilled by the time the Partnership Agreement (PA) has been submitted, EU countries will need to present the European Commission with an action plan and a timetable for implementation. Ex-ante conditionalities must be fulfilled no later than 31 December 2016 (or within two year following the adoption of the PA).

In the case of Romania the following ex-ante conditionalities have been defined:

• Effectiveness of the public procurement system, through the implementation of the recommendations of the evaluation carried out by Commission services;
• The existence of a strategy to reinforce Romania's administrative efficiency including public administration reform;
• Adoption of a comprehensive transport master plan, resting on a multimodal approach, reflecting financing constraints and benefiting from sound political endorsement;
• Preparation of a national research and innovation strategy for smart specialisation, being an integral part of an industrial policy, valorising national fields of excellence and comparative advantages, reflecting demand-driven inputs;
• The existence and the implementation of a national strategy for poverty reduction;
• The existence of a national or regional strategy for health ensuring access to quality health services and economic sustainability;
• The existence of a comprehensive strategy to reduce early school leaving;
• Modernisation and strengthening of labour market institutions, in accordance with the Employment Guidelines;
• In fisheries, improve data collection for fisheries management (to ensure a smooth shift from direct to shared management) and the implementation of a Union control, inspection and enforcement system;
• Romania should have appropriate recording systems to allow systematic monitoring of state aid expenditure, to ensure the compliance with state aid rules and, in particular, to avoid accumulation;
• In agriculture and rural development, efforts are needed to strengthen and extend the advisory capacity on innovation and sustainable management of agriculture and forests; develop a functional cadastre system covering the territory of the country and an agricultural strategy with priorities per sector;
• Adoption of a strategic plan for aquaculture.

Source: Position Paper on the Commission Services on the development of the Partnership Agreement and Programmes for the period 2014-2020 in Romania

Read the full Position paper

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