A European Commission delegation will arrive in Romania on April 28 to reassess the situation of EU funds for human resources, cabinet chief in Labour minister Sorin Ardelean told HotNews.ro/EurActiv.ro on Friday. At the moment, Brussels has blocked Romania's reimbursement requests' analysis. The main deficiency that led to the funds' blockage addresses the SMIS electronic system. The statements have been made during a seminar staged by the Institute for Public Policies.
Sorin Ardelean also explained said that the SMIS technical issues noted by the EC are the incompatibility between existent Operational Programmes and POS DRU, which led errors when uploading data onto the electronic System. More specifically, when the Commission ran its checks last year, data could not be uploaded.
According to Ardelean, the Labour Ministry dent a letter to Brussels this week, containing the measures taken to fix the problems. "There have been checks addressing uploaded data accuracy and this should be recorded by the European Commission", he said.
Ministry's officials have recently notified that last year's Operational Programme for Human Resources Sector Development system audit Report, followed by the Commission's checks, were the grounds for laying off Management Authority manager Cristina Iova.
According to Sorin Ardelean, Management Authority's activity has improved a lot lately, including staff deficiency, and now most vacancies have been occupied. "Now there are only 15-20 vacancies, out of 88", the official added. Most people employed here have been transferred from other ministries.
Increasing the number of the AM POS DRU personnel followed the Government's approving an Emergency ordinance granting priority to hire to the institutions responsible with handling EU funds.
The seminar organised by the IPP featur