Brussels, 15/07/2005 (Agence Europe) - Danuta Hübner, European Commissioner for Regional Policy, was on visit to Romania on Thursday 14 July to discuss the state of progress in preparations for receiving aid from the European Union's regional policy after the country's accession foreseen for 2007. She thus met President Traian Basescu, Prime Minister Calin Popescu Tariceaunu, and Ionut Popescu, the finance minister, as well as two opposition members. As during her first visit to Romania, the Commissioner spoke of the management of Structural and Cohesion Funds. Romania currently receives pre-accession aid of around EUR 3 billion - staggered over the period 2004-2006 and coming from the PHARE, SAPARD and ISPA programmes - intended to allow it to strengthen its institutions as well as its infrastructures, especially in rural areas. Thanks to this funding, considerable work has been carried out to modernise the water treatment plant in Craiova, a large town in the south-western part of the country. In the context of the financial perspectives for the period 2007-2013, Romania must benefit from sizeable new structural funds under the convergence objective.