"2014 will again be a year when we exceed not only what was absorbed in five years, but in 2013 too," Ponta said before the Chamber of Deputies.
According to the prime minister, during the PDL government, the absorption was 7%, and now it is 35%.
Ponta said that the liberal democratic governments have left Romania with the image of a country "with the greatest incompetence and corruption in the EU funds absorption," an image changed by the ministers who took office after May 2012.
The prime minister explained that the five operational programs totaled 98% of the European funds available to Romania and they were blocked or suspended in various phases and now they are operational and, in 2013, Romania had the largest increase in absorption compared to the previous period .
Also, Victor Ponta expressed again his regret that the European funds allocated to Romania for the period 2014-2020 are too low and believes that the fault for this belongs to President Traian Basescu, "a weak negotiator”.
“Unfortunately, in the allocation of European funds for each country in the region, through the negotiations by the President of the country, Mr. Basescu, Romania received the lowest allocation, along with Bulgaria, across the EU, compared to the number of inhabitants. Romania would certainly have needed more structural and cohesion funds than other countries. Unfortunately, we had a weak negotiator who was not interested in what will happen with Romania after 2014, "Ponta said.