Although Romania recorded the most significant annual expansion in the EU in January-March 2020 (2.7 percent), despite the economic decline throughout Europe, maintaining a positive trajectory lies in the capacity of states to adapt to the new conditions, in an economy that is under the sign of a sharp decline and a pandemic that has affected the whole world, according to CONAF.

One of the main instruments that can support economic growth in Romania is European funds, the Women’s Entrepreneurship Confederation explains: “The authorities have at their disposal the simplest leverage – the absorption of European funds and the relaunch of businesses that seem to have no economic future. The metropolitan area, Bucharest-Ilfov, where about 270,000 companies are officially registered out of a total of over 990,000 nationwide, cannot currently benefit from European funds.”

Cristina Chiriac, the president of CONAF says that “when every euro counts”, the Ministry of European Funds should rethink its approach: “I think that companies in the metropolitan area have shown maturity and most of them have managed to cope with the COVID-19 crisis. Stimulating them, through equitable access to European-funded applications, would help both entrepreneurs and the economy to recover much faster. Approximately 270,000 companies could benefit from European funds. If at least half of them submit eligible projects, the absorption rate will increase and thus Romania, in addition to economic expansion at national level, will be able to benefit from European funds in large amounts for the next financial year and would implicitly lead to the reintegration of unemployed people.”