Absorption of European Funds by Romania

The 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. (C) 2014 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.