January 9 (SeeNews) - Romania received 3.9 million euro ($4.5 million), the second installment of a 34.28 million euro grant from the EU, aimed to help it tackle African swine fever (PPA), the Sanitary Veterinary Authority and Food Safety, ANSVSA, said on Wednesday.
The European Commission has pledged to send the next installment as soon as the budgetary situation will allow it, ANSVSA said in a press release.
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"The fact that the 13.9 million euro payment, which is part of a 17 million euro promised advance, was made in a short time since the Grant Decision is a confirmation that the Romanian Government has acted and continues to take all action to combat African swine fever in full compliance with requests from the European Commission," ANSVSA said.
The first tranche, worth 10 million euro, was transferred to Romania on December 13.
Romania requested in August financial support from the EU to deal with swine fever.
According to a recent report issued by the ANSVSA in October, 998 outbreaks of PPA in 246 localities in 13 counties and 90 cases of PPA in wild boars were registered. In total, 348,691 pigs affected by the disease were culled. Most of the outbreaks - 564 - were in the eastern county of Tulcea.
In August, Romanian president Klaus Iohannis said that local farmers were headed for bankruptcy because the government handed poorly the recent outbreak of PPA.
The president emphasised that there are major implications for the national economy because the PPA virus is jeopardising all commercial pig farms in Romania, which produce about half of the pork for domestic consumption.
($=0.8733 euro)