Csilla Hegedüs, MIPE: “PNRR is a huge chance for Romania”

“The PNRR negotiation was a very difficult procedure because the European Commission had very clear ideas. 21 percent of PNRR for digitization means over 6 billion Euro. There has never been such funding for this sector.

MIPE has the role of watchdog, but the hard part is on the shoulders of the ministries. We are trying to bring Romania into the 21st century. Colleagues from ADR talked about the government cloud, which is the most important project in this field. The cloud wants to solve the problem of interconnecting the databases of institutions,” Csilla Hegedus, Secretary of State, Ministry of Investments and European Funds (MIPE) said during Romania’s National Recovery and Resilience Plan Conference 2022 organized by The Diplomat-Bucharest.

“In the pandemic, teachers were trying to teach online, and in most cases, things did not go the way they should. Through PNRR, 881 million euros are allocated for the training of teachers, but also for the preparation of subjects. Only through education can we have a generation ready for digitization.

Another acute problem in the pandemic was the lack of telemedicine. On e-health, 470 million euros will be spent through PNRR. Romania’s population is aging, family doctors are insufficient, and we need to develop a high-performance telemedicine system nationwide.

We hope that together with colleagues from the other ministries we will be able to keep pace with reaching the targets and implementing the PNRR projects.

Our role at MIPE is to help ministries meet their PNRR milestones.

PNRR is a huge chance for Romania. We are talking about reforms and investments that have been needed for 30 years. I hope that we will be able to make these reforms through a change of mentality and approach, so that we have a life closer to what we all want.”

Full recording of the conference here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5f1JNCEe-I&t=5504s