Romania is a European country who joined the EU in 2007. During this period, the country's water sector was largely fragmented with hundreds of small and inefficient water utilities across the country. Romania has been granted several transition periods to reach EU standards for water and wastewater infrastructure and services, and it began an ample process of consolidating and regionalizing its utilities to turn them into more efficient autonomous public enterprises acting under commercial law.

In a recent development, the Romania Government has determined to increase the rate of absorption of European Union funds, including through leveraging expertise from International Financial Institutions like the EBRD (European Bank for Reconstruction and Development). And the Bank on its end will provide technical assistance to support Romania in the further development and consolidation of the water and wastewater services in the country for two years.

 An agreement has been reached and signed by Matteo Patrone, EBRD Regional Director for Romania and Bulgaria and Marius Nica, the Delegated Minister for European Funds at Romania’s Ministry of Regional Development, in Bucharest.  And the assignment will focus on sustainability of the regional water utilities, as beneficiaries of large EU grant amounts.

According to Mr. Patrone said: "We are very pleased to join forces with Romania and the EU in this important sector. We will offer our expertise to ensure that EU structural funds are used in an effective and efficient way so that they can deliver better and sustainable water services. The EBRD will further support the water sector reforms, with the objective to improve governance and sustainability of the water services, with focus on sector consolidation and long-term asset management strategies."

The signing of this agreement follows an earlier agreement that was reached in February 2016 about the provision of technical assistance for projects and programmes funded through EU Structural Instruments under the 2014-2020 programming period. And Under this agreement, the water sector has been identified as one of the key priorities.