EC Won’t Reimburse SAPARD Payments Earlier Than 3-4 Months - Minister

The European Commission won’t reimburse payments to Romania within the SAPARD program sooner than in three or four months, Romanian agriculture minister Ilie Sarbu said in a press conference Thursday.
He added the Commission considered the action plan drawn up by the Romanian paying Agency for Rural Development and Fishery (APDRP) wasn’t good enough and needs to be redone.

The SAPARD program should have ended in 2008, but the Commission gave Romania a one-year extension. If the extension had not been granted, all payments to beneficiaries after the deadline set for the end of 2008, would have been paid from the state budget and would not have been reimbursed by the commission.

The Commission said in December that it granted this extension to Romania and Bulgaria.

According to the paying agency, over 400 SAPARD projects will benefit from the one-year and beneficiaries must submit reimbursement applications by the end of September 2009. Payments for these projects are estimated at EUR90 million.

Financing contracts within the SAPARD program were concluded for 4,549 projects, requiring a total EUR1.4 billion in public funds (from the European Commission and the state budget). Payments so far amounted to EUR1.28 billion.