Romania barely uses EU funding

In the past two years Romania has taken out more than 20 billion euros in IMF and EU loans. At the same time the country has only managed to make use of two percent of the 19.6 billion euros in EU Structural and Cohesion funding which it is eligible for, the daily Adevărul complains, pointing out that this money doesn't have to be paid back: "In the next EU Budget period from 2013-2019 Romania will receive as much European funding as it was able to use between 2007 and 2013 - in other words very little. The others will receive what we haven't managed to successfully apply for, which means that we will move even further away from the EU average. The strategic goal of our EU membership, to reduce the gap which our past opened up between Romania and the West, won't be achieved for at least another generation. A generation that could achieve something with money from the EU that doesn't have to be paid back, and which now has to shoulder the burden of an [IMF] loan which does have to be paid back."

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