Abstract:

This paper aims to analyze the factors influencing the absorption of EU funds under cohesion policy, in particular the administrative capacity related factors. Analysis of the absorption rate has a significant importance since it measures the capacity a state or region to make effective and efficient use of the funding available under cohesion policy which is considered the most important EU investment policy. The methodology developed by the authors to measure absorption capacity was applied to the case of Romanian’s Operational Programs funded during 2007-2013 under Convergence Objective. The results obtained allowed the authors to reveal the main administrative weaknesses explaining why Romania has very low absorption rate; the bottlenecks identified should be lessons learnt and should be properly addressed by Romanian policy makers for 2014-2020 programming period.