Romania to get new EU funds minister

The Romanian technocrat minister in charge of managing the distribution of European structural funds resigned Monday, at the request of Prime Minister Dacian Cioloş.

Aura Răducu said Cioloş was unhappy with her short-term objectives for the ministry and she had decided to step down as a consequence.

Răducu said she had done her best, since taking office in November, to improve the absorption of EU funds. Romania lags behind the rest of the EU in its take-up of development funds, which reached 63 percent last year. She also tried to eliminate the mismanagement of funding, which has at times risked being blocked by the European Commission, she said.

The EU is set to invest some €30 billion in Romania until 2020, but an inefficient public administration, corruption and mismanagement of funds has plagued the use of European money in the country so far.

“I told her that I appreciate the effort she put in; she started with a difficult situation there and used all her expertise on European funds to unblock some things,” Cioloş said in a press conference. “We agreed however that right now I would like to pass to a new approach in that ministry and in these conditions I accepted her resignation.”

A replacement is expected to be named Tuesday, with the Mediafax news agency naming the prime minister’s current European affairs advisor, Cristian Ghinea, as the likely candidate.

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