Mihai Kirika
According to Kirika, the process of joining the European community – its initial stage and the very fact of squatting – is turning into “a running, continuous race to attract European funds.”
“They are an opportunity, of course, and they should be used to the maximum, but it dulls our senses. Because this constant state of ‘outstretched hand’, hoping that you have some story to justify why you are standing with outstretched hand, dulls your senses, puts you out of alertness,” he said at the Economic Forum “Cooperation at the level of local public administration: Romania-Republic of Moldova-Ukraine”.
The mayor believes that the approach that European funds are the only way of development is erroneous:
“All the speeches I have heard in the last ten years speak about European funds as the only way of development, because there is no other. In fact, this is a wrong approach. European funds are an auxiliary for the member states, which should improve the economic engines, give them an extra turbine, but the main turbine should be the state. The Member State should create the economic engines on which its economy will grow.”
Mihai Chirica cited Poland as an example, noting that along with the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary, it has managed to launch its own economic engine in parallel with relations with the European community, going beyond the idea that European funds are the only way of development.
Priorities – economic result and impact on the population
At the same time, he draws attention to the fact that “at the end of every funding application, two essential aspects should never disappear – the economic result and the impact on the population”:
“Firstly, what is the economic result of the implementation of the European fund for the whole existing economic community or the one that might emerge in that area, region, country? And secondly, what is the effective impact on the population for which you have brought in European funds? How is the leu, the cent that you bring to this project reflected in the improvement of the standard of living of the population that is directly affected by the use of these European funds? That was the correct definition of European funds. Subsequently, this definition has been distorted towards an “outstretched hand”.
In this sense, the mayor urged Moldova and Ukraine to “avoid such things” and emphasized the need to involve people who know how to deal with economy in the local public administration.
