PANEL 1 ESI Funds 2014-2020 and best practice Romania’s experience

Impact of Cohesion Policy in Romania from the perspective of past decade

The impact on GDP

Household consumption 2010 prices, billion Lei

Total investments 2010 prices, billion Lei

Unemployment rate

Employment

Average monthly salary lei

Transport infrastructure Investments in environment Progress end 2015 (1) Indicators at the level of NSRF priority themes /vs. targets Transport infrastructure Railway infrastructure rehabilitated: 127,05 Km/ vs. 209,185 Km New TEN-T road infrastructure: 312,44 Km/ vs. 372,945 Km TEN-T road infrastructure rehabilitated: 289,29 Km / vs. 302,796 Km County road infrastructure rehabilitated: 1 667,95 Km/ vs. 877 Km City road infrastructure rehabilitated: 198,43 Km/ vs. 325 Km Investments in environment No. of new/ rehabilitated wastewater treatment plants: 107/ vs. 200 No. of projects for renewable energy: 32/ vs. 30 No. of localities with new/ rehabilitated water facilities in regional system: 312/ vs. 430 New integrated system for waste management: 1/ vs. 37 Social infrastructure No. of Medical Units rehabilitated: 58/ vs. 62 No. of Social centers rehabilitated: 172 / vs.223 No. of beneficiaries for social infrastructure rehabilitated: 47 853 / vs. 10 000 No. of beneficiaries for pre- university education infrastructure rehabilitated: 93 399 / vs. 40 000

Progress end 2015 (2) Indicators at the level of NSRF priority themes /vs. targets Teritorial development No. of integrated urban development plans (PIDU) accepted (No.): 94/ vs. 30 No. of urban development projects (No.): 352/ vs. 60 No. of beneficiaries for PIDU projects: 8 203 338/ vs. 400 000 Development of Human Capital New jobs created : 17 232 (ROP) + 7 312 (SOP HRD) + 16970 (SOP C) = 41 514/ vs. 38500 Education staff trained: 256 668 pers. / vs. 75 000 No. of participants at the vulnerable groups programmes: 72 901/ vs. 13 000 No. of long-term unemployed participants in integrated programmes: 122 017/ vs.65 000 Increasing competitiveness No. of microenterprises supported: 1 976/ vs. 1 500 No. of SMEs assisted: 2 729/ vs. 2 000 No. of tourists in the rehabilitated accommodation structures: 989 301/ vs. 400 000 No. of turism projects contracted: 233/ vs. 221

Investments by major fields (based on amounts declared by December 2015 )

Total no of projects/ region Investments in the regions North East 1848 North West 2335 Total no of projects/ region 16 002 Source: SMIS Center 2007 West 1226 South East 1500 South 1618 South-West 1343 Bucharest Ilfov 4125

Experience with preparation of Partnership agreement, operational programmes In 2014-2020 period, there will be financed investments under all 11 Thematic Objectives established through the European regulation in order to support the accomplishment of targets assumed by Romania in line with Europe 2020 Strategy, using ESI Funds. The selection of the thematic objectives was made taking into account their contribution to the development of different sectors to reduce the gaps between regions and between Ro and other Member States: competitiveness people and society infrastructure resources administration and governance

Partnership Agreement 2014-2020 Main steps for approval 1 of April 2014 – the official version of the PA was sent to the COM through SFC 2014 2 of June 2014 – the Romanian authorities received the COM comments on PA 7 July 2014 – the Romanian authorities sent the revised PA version to COM through SFC 2014 6 August 2014 – approval decision (Bx/6.8.2014/C(2014) 5515 final) Romania was the eleventh MS that received the approval of the PA

Operational programmes All operational programmes are approved: Most deprived persons 28 November 2014 Technical Assistance 18 December 2014 Competitiveness 19 December 2014 Human Capital 25 February 2015 Administrative Capacity Rural Development 26 May 2015 Regional 24 June 2015 Large Infrastructure 10 July 2015 Fisheries and Maritime Affairs 25 November 2015

ETC Programmes For the period 2014-2020, Romania participates in the following ETC Programmes:   Interreg V-A Romania Bulgaria Programme Interreg V-A Romania Hungary Programme Joint Operational Programme Romania – Ukraine Joint Operational Programme Romania – Republic of Moldova IPA  Cross-border Cooperation Programme Romania - Serbia Joint Operational Programme Black Sea Basin Danube Programme Hungary – Slovacia – Romania – Ukraine Programme URBACT III Programme ESPON 2020 Programme INTERREG EUROPE Programme INTERACT III Programme

Institutional architecture Managing Authorities and Operational Programmes 2014- 2020

The first calls The status of launching the calls in 2015 and for 2016-2017 Program Operațional UE allocation 2014-2020 (mil. euro) Applicant guides under public consultation 2015 Open calls Procentage of the launched calls 2015 % N0. of launched calls 2016 Procentage of the allocation to be launched 2016 No. of calls 2017 Large Infrastructure 9.418,52 21 23 98,5 3 Competitiveness 1.329,79 11 8 30,79 17 69,21 Human Capital 4.326,84 6 48 47,17 12 Technical Assistance 212,77 1 NA continuous Regional 6.600,00 33 95,5 Administrative Capacity 553,19 5 2 10 60 Fisheries and maritime affairs 168,42 27 38,48 58 Most deprived persons 441 16 TOTAL 23050,53 50 158 82,72 79

ETC Programmes

Effective implementation and key factors for successful usage of ESIF Management and the overall coordination of the implementation funds through: unitary management decisions on programming and implementation of funds and through a shortened decision making process; synergy - structures that will not be replicated for each management authority; shorter administrative deadlines; unitary approach in terms of implementation according to standardized norms; focus of expertise and a better management of human resources.

Sound implementation of 2014-2020 programming period Starting the sound implementation of 2014-2020 programming period represents one of the main priorities, thus: the framework agreements for attributions delegation are being drafted the description of the management and control systems is being prepared As far as the management system is concerned, simplification and effective coordination are the guiding principles of the new institutional architecture that will manage ESI Funds 2014-2020.

the Ministry of European Funds takes operational measures of a horizontal nature to applying modern management principles, based on performance Thus, the legal provisions impose a semestrial evaluation of the personnel involved in the management of EU funds on a basis of performance indicators a coordination mechanism with structures on three levels (strategic committee, thematic inter- institutional, operational), is set up in order to ensure the coherence of the interventions, complementarities and synergies in the programming and implementation stages.

In order to provide a uniform and equitable rule applying to the FESI implementation for 2014-2020, there were adopted: the national rules on the eligibility of expenditure the financial flow mechanism Regarding the IT system, Romania is currently developing SMIS 2014+ and MySMIS2014 the modules are in various stages of analysis, development and testing, and it will operational gradually this year This system will simplify the procedures as well as diminish the volume of documents submitted by the beneficiaries.