The Government Meeting approved an Emergency Ordinance regarding the financial management of non-repayable financial allocations from the European Fund for Maritime Affairs, Fisheries, and Aquaculture (EFMAFA) related to the common fisheries policy and integrated maritime policy at the level of the European Union, as well as the funds allocated from the state budget for the programming period 2021-2027.

The approved regulatory act ensures a constant financial flow to the beneficiaries by establishing norms regarding payments, advances, guarantees, and debts, as well as supplementing the financial flows with specific regulations for situations arising in the implementation of funds from EFMAFA.

To ensure good financial management of the funds, the financing mechanism is regulated, determining the types of sums included in the budget and the rules that beneficiaries of the Fisheries and Aquaculture Program must comply with when submitting payment requests, as well as the verifications that, as applicable, territorial units of the State Treasury will carry out.

Additionally, this regulatory act establishes the conditions for granting advances for the implementation of operations depending on the type of beneficiary and the method of justification.

Furthermore, the mechanism for recovering the pre-financing granted is regulated in cases where it has not been justified. The co-financing percentage from the State Budget of the amounts made available by the European Commission from EFMAFA is 30%.

It is recalled that the Fisheries and Aquaculture Program 2021-2027 has a financial allocation of 232 million euros, of which 162.5 million euros come from the European Fund for Maritime Affairs, Fisheries, and Aquaculture (EFMAFA), and 69.5 million euros from the State Budget.

The amounts corresponding to the implementation of the measures proposed by this regulatory act are included in the multi-annual provisions of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MADR), and for the year 2024, the proposed measures are within the approved budget of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development for the year 2024.

Therefore, the amount of 428,600,000 lei (commitment and budget credits) will be allocated, without generating a financial impact on the consolidated general budget or on the budget of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development.

The beneficiaries of the measures provided for in this regulatory act can be: licensed commercial fishermen, aquaculture farmers, processors of fishery and aquaculture products, public authorities, research units in the field of aquaculture and fisheries, beneficiaries of local development strategies in fishing areas. (Photo: Freepik)