PM Ponta: Romania to get Regional Development portfolio in European Commission

Prime Minister Victor Ponta declared on Wednesday that Romania obtained after negotiations 'the most important portfolio possible' in the European Commission, namely regional development; he mentioned that when Commission President Jean Claude Juncker officially notifies him, he would make a nomination for this position, and the nominee would be 'also heard by the Romanian Parliament.'

'I have obtained for Romania — not for the Romanian Government, not for one Romanian, but for Romania — the most important portfolio for us in the European Commission; regional development means all the funds, cohesion and structural programmes over 2014-2019. From this point of view, any person of sound mind, knowing what the European Commission means applauded the fact that Romania — even if it had problems with the use of European funds in the past, even having this disadvantage in the fact that I am negotiating with President Juncker and with the other prime minister, while I am not at the European Council — has obtained the best portfolio we could wish. Under these circumstances, even Mr. [President Traian] Basescu, my opponent, was reasonable enough to refrain from further comments, as he knew that obtaining the portfolio of regional development is an extremely important goal,' Ponta declared.

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