NRRP Monitor report on June 30 targets: 16 targets achieved, 11 overdue/ „Funds could be blocked in autumn due to whistleblower law”

Of the 27 NRRP milestones and targets that were due on the 30th of June, only 16 have been met and 11 are overdue, according to the report published by the NRRP Monitor platform and drafted by Cristian Ghinea, former USR Minister for Investment and European Projects.

There is good news and bad news, the press release says. In the good news category, it mentions:

– Calls worth more than €2 billion for the rehabilitation and improvement of energy efficiency of buildings have already been launched by the Ministry of Development, Public Works and Administration.
– We are making progress on the Government Cloud legislation, but delays in the latter are affecting procurement. It can be made up with some extra effort from the Ministry.
– We have in the Ministry of Health the agency that will deal with more than €2 billion in investments in hospitals. At the moment, we are on track with healthcare.

There are „serious concerns on the energy side, where the Ministry of Energy is late with calls for hundreds of millions of euros for new projects, fortunately, the delay can be recovered”.

On the reform side: „we are starting to see the first botched implementation of the commitments in the NRRP. For example, the new law on the Metropolitan Areas does not meet all the requirements set out by the Commission. Another example is the National Road Safety Strategy. The strategy does not include or sufficiently address requirements such as:
– enforcement of rules governing compliance, tougher penalties for breaking the law;- reduction of speed limits in certain areas or roads based on accident data/risk analysis and EU best practices, the introduction of a speed management system and mandatory safety features, revision of traffic rules including priority for vulnerable users;

– only contains references to the need to develop a smart transportation system, not a vision of how this will be achieved.

This kind of approach to the reforms that Romania has committed to implementing is the main danger to the NRRP funds,” the press release says.

„Romania has already cashed in the €3.8 billion pre-financing we received immediately after the NRRP was approved. Romania has submitted a first payment request for the 2021 milestones, simple milestones, easy to meet, and I do not think there will be any problems to receive this first tranche of 2.6 billion. There is a lot of money negotiated by us to come in for this period of site organization. But, from now on, things get complicated. From now on, the hard decisions, political choices will have to be made” – says Cristian Ghinea.

In addition, there are dangers linked to milestones that have just been ticked off but not completed as promised.

„Milestones are not met when Romania enacts, for example, a law with the title of the one required by the NRRP. Milestones are considered met when Romania enacts a law with the provisions written in the NRRP. The assessment criteria for each milestone are specified in a document agreed by our country. After that the real assessment is made,” the report says.

A concrete example analyzed is the Milestone on the Entry into Force of the Whistleblower Protection Law. This is one of the milestones that were due in Q1 2022 and was noted in the previous NRRP Monitoring report as „overdue”.

The report details the progress of this law and how it was passed, in Parliament, last week. „According to the version voted by the PSD, PNL and UDMR both in committee and in the final plenary vote of
Thursday, the presumption of good faith of the whistleblower has been removed or the
the possibility of anonymous reporting of suspected fraud. (… ) Such a masquerade will not fool any official in Brussels when this milestone is sent for assessment for a payment claim. When will the money in the NRRP be blocked because the whistleblower law looks like this? In the fall.” the NRRP Monitor report states.

The 11 milestones that are considered to be „overdue” compared to the deadline of the 30th of June and the comments published by MonitorNRRP:

The adoption of the national road safety strategy

The signing of contracts for the construction of at least 100 MW of new electrolyzer capacity – Only by launching the call for projects, the milestone is not met and will only be met when the financing contracts are signed. The European Commission has specified that it will only approve this milestone after the submission of the financing contracts. At the moment these do not exist, the milestone is late but recoverable until the payment request.

The signing of contracts for high-efficiency gas-fired CHP and district heating projects – (same as above)

Launching a tender procedure for energy efficiency investments in the industry

Publication of the call for tender for the authorization of telecom operators to grant 5G licenses

Signing the contract for the implementation of the investment based on the tender procedure for the implementation of the Government Cloud investment – We consider the cloud project to be systemically behind schedule with a real risk of going off the schedule altogether. There are only 6 months left to catch up.

Allocation of funds for Romania’s participation in the European microchip production project – This Government Decision circulated in the government as a proposal and had to be adopted on the last day (30 June) before the deadline. I did not identify it among those adopted by the government. We consider it late for now and will come back if we identify it.

Entry into force of the Law on Metropolitan Areas – One of the criteria for evaluating the Law on Metropolitan Areas adopted on the 29th of July in Parliament is the establishment of clear criteria for defining these areas. This is precisely what the law does not do and we will consider it delayed

The signing of contracts with public operators (municipalities) for the construction, equipping, and operation of 110 day-care centers – The call was launched on the last day of Q2 2022, the implementation indicator refers to the signing of the contracts.

Entry into force of the law establishing the profile of the future teacher on digital competencies and the way of assessment of digital competencies in the teaching rank exams – The legal provision is currently missing, the milestone is not met until its occurrence.

Entry into force of the amendments to the legislative framework on improving the quality of learning environments – The legal provision is currently missing, and the milestone has not been met until it is issued.

Translated article