Shared Management between the European Commission and Romania on the Implementation of European Structural and Investment Funds

Abstract

The European Commission (EC) and Romania ensure a shared management of European funds and the principles governing the current financial framework are those of sound financial management. For each operational program, European regulations make mandatory the existence of the following authorities: the management body (MA), the certifying body (CA) and the audit institution (AA), which must operate independently of each other. Each Member State has the freedom to create its own institutional framework, if the three authorities mentioned in the European regulations are clearly defined and delineated. The present article aims to present whether the management and control system (MCS) implemented at the Romanian level is too bureaucratic if too many authorities have been created on the European Commission's cash flow. At the same time, some of the main causes will be identified, which may lead to a lack of beneficiaries' interest in accessing the funds allocated to certain programs. Some of these cases originate from the 2007-2013 programming period where Romania was sanctioned by the European Commission with many financial corrections due to systemic irregularities identified in the process of public procurement procedure, the evaluation and selection process projects. At the same time, the lack of funding due to the failure to complete some projects in time in December 2015 will be considered, as it is compulsory to ensure the necessary public and private financial resources from the own local budgets or from the state budget in order to be able to be finished.