EIB Lends 1.0 Bln Euro to Romania to Co-Finance EU-Funded Programmes

The loan will be used to ensure resources for co-financing of investment projects eligible for European Union funding within three sectoral operational programmes - Transport, Environment and Energy, Romania's Deputy Finance and Economy Minister Eugen Teodorovici told a news conference.

The loan will also fund other priority investment programmes, which will need separate evaluation according to EIB criteria, he said. It will contribute to the country's strategy of public debt management and to the reduction of long-term financing costs.

Romania will ask for an advance payment of 250 million euro from the loan amount to be extended by the end of this year, but this is not intended to support Romania's budget deficit which has been on the rise in the last few months, Teodorovici said.

The country targets a budget gap of 2.3% of the gross domestic product (GDP) projected for 2008, but the European Commission said earlier it sees a shortfall equal to 3.5% of GDP for the EU member due to its persistently loose fiscal policy.

"We are looking forward for the year to come to be even a little bit more active than our mid-term planning [...] which is one billion [euro] per year in Romania", EIB vice president Matthias Kollatz-Anhen told the news conference. "We will do our best for the year to come, to prepare a higher volume for Romania, let's say a third more."

Romania joined the EU last year and stands to receive almost 20 billion euro through the bloc's structural and cohesion funds between 2007 and 2013.

($ = 0.7791 euro)