State might become SME’s shareholder through loans of Social European Fund

The Romanian state might become a shareholder for SMEs that access loans via the European Social Fund (ESF) and fail to repay within five years, said Rovana Plumb, delegate minister for European Funds, at a conference marking the ten years anniversary of the SEE and Norvegian grants in Romania on Tuesday.

“We are considering to bring a new financial instrument to support the business environment, especially SMEs. It is called Micromezanin and it is applied in Germany. We do this because we have to come up with solutions for business environment, to support it, so that firms can survive.What kind of a financial instrument is it? The Micromezanin means for the European Social Fund that we can take a loan of up to EUR 50,000 for a period of almost 5 years for an SME. If within this period the loan cannot be repaid, it becomes a surplus to the social capital. We want to support firms, not to make firms go into insolvency or bankruptcy due to this loan,” said Plumb.

She added that an impact analysis was in the works, and a memorandum will also be developed to be presented to the Government.

Plumb also talked about structural funds and said there are close to EUR 1 billion from SEE and Norvegian grants that are added to the EUR 33 billion made available by the EU.

“Together with the current governing period, 2014-2020, we have close to EUR 1 billion, to which EUR 33 billion are added. For this period, the important sectors that we focus on and for which we will launch project calls are related to education, healthcare, research, business environment, combating poverty and the promotion of social inclusion. We will continue by using the European economic space mechanism and the Norvegian grants,” concluded Plumb.