Absorption of European Funds by Romania

AbstractThe European Union provides financial support to all Member States through structural instruments (Structural Funds) and the Fund for Agriculture. Nationally, each Member State has to set up operational programs (SOP) in accordance with European requirements to access the available money. In the current multiannual financial exercise there are 7 SOP, plus the agriculture program. The absorption level of European funds for the current financial period - 2007-2013 - is low for several reasons: lack of strategic vision for programming development, poor quality of projects, excessive bureaucracy, lack of optimization of financial flows etc. For the upcoming 2014-2020 financial programming period, Romanian authorities and the European Commission will improve the absorption of EU funds. In this respect, the Government and the European Commission will sign a Partnership Agreement