Romania ranks last in the EU in supporting the private sector through PNRR and first in financing bankrupt state companies, according to a study by the EP.
The latest study developed by the European Parliament which analyzes the amounts collected by the top 100 beneficiaries from the national recovery and resilience plans (PNRR), places us last in Europe in terms of beneficiaries from the private sector – only 3%, while 97 % of the money from PNRR goes to the state, especially to state companies.
The European average for private beneficiaries is 28.5%.
In the case of Romania, the first and biggest beneficiary is the CFR, which receives 2.8 billion euros from the PNRR. In 2023, CFR had a loss of almost 900 million lei, and for this year the loss is already proposed in the official budget project to be 600 million lei.
Dragoș Pîslaru, rapporteur for the Recovery and Resilience Mechanism in the European Parliament, is of the opinion that most of the money from the PNRR goes to bankrupt state companies, which “become sycophants of public money”.
“Has anyone wondered how CFR, as the first beneficiary of the PNRR money, would be able to manage billions of European money if it is the state company that records exponentially increasing losses? The study carried out by the European Parliament shows us that the Government does not support the private sector and transfers the money mainly to large state companies. If we see the government’s contempt for the principles of corporate governance and the refusal to implement the necessary reforms that actually block the 3rd payment request, we can understand that the project of the great siphoning of the PNRR is in full swing. The merged government is juggling huge sums and the future of Romanians by hiding money in the vaults of bankrupt state companies,” said REPER MEP Dragoș Pîslaru.
Pîslaru requests the Government and the Ministry of Transport that the draft budget of the CFR be withdrawn, considering that “it is outrageous to already project a loss of 598 million lei”.
