On Friday the Finance Ministry counted what is still to be drawn. €6.43 billion from the NRRP. €2.08 billion from payment request no. 5, under evaluation at the Commission. €4.35 billion from request no. 6, the last, filed on 30 September. The decision, by 20 November. Romania has already taken €13.27 billion, about two thirds of the plan: €8.95 billion in grants, €4.32 billion in loans. In that sum sit €301.2 million, received on 9 October, for targets and milestones suspended from request no. 3. The rest is not a bonus. It is cover for spending already made.

The 2026 budget was built on the assumption that all the money programmed for this year arrives. Payments for targets the Commission does not validate are not recovered from the NRRP. They stay on the national budget. Grants refill the budget after validation. To 30 September, grant revenue: 22.27 billion lei. Payments on grant-funded projects: 27.19 billion. The gap, until refill, is domestic. NRRP loans are not revenue. They are deficit finance, cheaper than the market. 15.74 billion lei paid from that component sit in the deficit, whenever the tranche arrives.

By 14 October ministries and central institutions had paid 76.57 billion lei on European funds and the NRRP, 64.6% of the 118.61 billion in credits. Of that, the NRRP 44.63 billion, a 74.2% rate: grants 28.71 billion (69.9%), loans 15.91 billion (83.6%). Non-reimbursable European funds, 31.94 billion, 54.6%. Those are execution figures. They are not Brussels figures.

Dragoș Pîslaru, acting minister for Investments, also on Friday, on Digi24: from request 5, more than €1.4 billion of grants are “in the green”. Romania could draw in November. On request 6, about €900 million remain at risk: public-sector pay milestones and decarbonisation. MIPE, after the August renegotiation: an allocation of €20.11 billion, of which €13.57 billion grants and €6.54 billion loans. Absorption estimated, preliminarily, above 90% on grants, above 95% on loans. An estimate, not a transfer.

Anyone who takes 6.43 as money in the account skips November. Anyone who takes €900 million as a loss skips the Commission. The 2026 deficit holds if requests 5 and 6 arrive. If they do not, the payments already made hold, from tax.

Until 20 November, two files remain in Brussels. After that, what remains is what the Commission validated and what stays in the treasury, without refill.

Image: Britchi Mirela, Victoria Palace, 1 December 2015, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons. The photograph is of the government building, not an NRRP plenary.

Sources consulted: Finance Ministry: Romania still has €6.43 billion to draw from the NRRP — G4Media; Romania could draw request-5 NRRP money in November — Digi24.