Romania will lose 231 million euros of European Union funds after failing to meet the deadline for reforming judges’ pensions, the government says.
Minister of Investments and European Projects, Dragoș Pîslaru, told Digi24, that during discussions in Brussels about payment from the National Recovery and Resilience Plan. the European Commission “very clearly” stated that Romania had not met necessary reforms on slashing judges’ pensions.
“The European Commission has stated very clearly that the milestone regarding judges’ pensions is not met,” the minister said.
“231 million euros are considered lost”
He said the deadline for passing the law was Nov. 28.
Romania’s Constitutional Court has delayed ruling on whether special pensions for magistrates were legal four times and is due to meet again on Feb. 11 to vote.
The country’s top judge, Lia Savonea, is opposed to scrapping or recalculating the pensions for magistrates which cost the government hundreds of millions of euros every year.
The EU has conditioned 231 million euros funding on the pensions being reformed. “At the moment (this money) is considered lost by the European Commission, because by November 28 Romania did not pass the law, and in subsequent discussions it could not show that the law had passed,” Pîslaru said.
“Our credibility at the European level has been affected,” he added.
Constitutional Court and legislative deadlock
Dragoș Pîslaru said the loss of funds was due to repeated delays of the Romanian Constitutional Court, as well as opposition from the judicial system for reforming pensions which are vastly above the national average.
Romanian PM: “The probability of losing the money is very high”
Premier Ilie Bolojan also warned Wednesday evening that Romania would likely lose the funds.
He said he would inform the Romanian Constitutional Court about the consequences of repeated delays and that in the absence of a quick decision, “the probability of losing the money is very high.”
The Head of the Government emphasized that the deadlock directly affects the state’s ability to receive the 2.6 billion euros from the payment request and to finance infrastructure projects without delays.
Regarding the budgetary impact, the Minister explained that the lost amount will have to be covered from the state budget for the investment projects to continue.
“If we lose this amount, we will have to cover 231 million from the national budget to respect our investment projects,” stated the Minister.
The court will meet on February 11 to vote on the pensions.
