Senator Anca Dragu: “The implementation of PNRR is a new test for Romania”

“Discussions on greening, the Green Deal, and reducing emissions have been going on for several years. 20-30 years ago, the emphasis was on economic growth and that’s it. Things have changed, and at the EU level there have been discussions about the quality of this economic growth, about the fact that we need to have economic growth based on knowledge, digitization, green energy.

The planet must be protected, we must protect it for our children and future generations. The economic paradigm has changed a lot. Economic growth must be sustainable,” Anca Dragu, Senator, Romanian Parliament said during Romania’s National Recovery and Resilience Plan Conference 2022 organized by The Diplomat-Bucharest.

“There have been a lot of rules, mechanisms and funding. Unfortunately, Romania is a little behind in accessing the money allocated through the Modernization Fund.

We live in a new economic paradigm. It matters a lot our attitude, it matters the message we send from the Government and the Parliament, it matters to have a dialogue with the business environment and entrepreneurs because from them we can find out what does not work in our plans.

We must not lose sight of the concept of prosumer. I believe that any citizen who is building a new house or renovating a house should consider becoming a prosumer.

We need laws, mechanisms, tools and funding. If there is a will, there is a solution, but we need vision.

The implementation of PNRR is a new test for Romania and we must remain optimistic that we will do better this time than in previous programs. But I would like to point out one thing: PNRR appeared in the context or after the pandemic. It was a reaction from European countries following the pandemic, in which we thought we needed to make these European economies more resilient to external shocks, such as the pandemic.

But we now have another external shock: war and energy shock. And now I think it would be appropriate to come up with a new PNRR that is focused on energy, that comes with additional resources, mechanisms and everything that includes such a program.

Of course, we, as a European country, must also come up with proposals to the European Union and the European Union to manage the issue. We need a new program of significant magnitude at EU level so that we can really deal with an external shock that we have not taken into account so far.”

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