Brussels, 09/03/2015 (Agence Europe) - Corina Cretu, the European commissioner for regional policy, is to visit Romania on 10-12 March.
While there, Cretu will meet Klaus Iohannis, Victor Ponta and Eugen Teodorovici - Romania's president, prime minister and minister for European funds respectively. She is also due to take part in a conference on financing SMEs, and to visit a pig breeding farm with Phil Hogan, the European commissioner for agriculture.
Teodorovici will take advantage of Cretu's visit to announce the formal adoption of an action plan to improve implementation of the regional programmes from the 2007-2013 period. This action plan was drawn up by the Romanian authorities following a meeting with European Commission experts on regional policy at the end of January.
Romania is the country with the weakest level of absorption for European funds. At the start of 2015, it had only absorbed 56.3% of the funds from the 2007-2013 period. (Jean Comte)