Published by Global Banking & Finance Review®
Posted on November 4, 2025
2 min readLast updated: January 21, 2026
Add as preferred source on GoogleRomania is setting up a flood infrastructure fund to access EU recovery funds, addressing urgent flood risks with a budget informed by a World Bank study.
BUCHAREST (Reuters) -Romania will set up an infrastructure fund to address flood emergencies over at least five years, a requirement to unblock European Union recovery funds, Environment Minister Diana Buzoianu said.
The country has seen some of its worst floods in at least two decades in 2024 and this year, causing 10 deaths, burst river banks, collapsed bridges and damage to thousands of homes.
Under a reform plan agreed with the European Commission in exchange for recovery funds, Romania has until the first quarter of 2026 to set up a mechanism to fund infrastructure works against floods.
Buzoianu said the fund will be based off a study conducted by the World Bank, which shows Romania needs between 10 billion and 40 billion euros ($11.66 billion-$46.65 billion) over at least five years to rehabilitate dams, build bridges, reinforce defences and other works.
But the months-old coalition government, which is struggling to lower the largest budget deficit in the EU, could not accommodate the full cost at present.
"At the moment we cannot cover absolutely all the ideal necessary works," Buzoianu told Reuters in an interview late last week. "But what I want is for this fund to cover works in areas where we already know we have high risk of flooding without which communities and lives are endangered."
While the value of the fund will be decided at government level, Buzoianu said the funds will come from water management fees and taxes and will be allocated for priority works put forward in the study.
The environment ministry has lost out on 2 billion euros ($2.33 billion) worth of EU recovery funds due to delays which made it impossible for projects due to be financed by the EU funds to be completed before an August 2026 deadline.
Buzoianu, who took over the ministry in late June, is working to reform forestry and water management agencies and meet EU targets to access remaining funds. Some 40% of the lost funding will be covered from the state budget.
(1 euro = 5.0840 lei)
($1 = 0.8575 euros)
(Reporting by Luiza Ilie; Editing by Susan Fenton)
A flood infrastructure fund is a financial resource established to finance projects aimed at preventing or mitigating the impact of flooding, including construction and rehabilitation of dams, levees, and drainage systems.
The World Bank provides financial and technical assistance to developing countries for infrastructure projects, helping them to build capacity and improve resilience against disasters like floods.
Disaster management encompasses the strategies and practices used to prepare for, respond to, recover from, and mitigate the impacts of disasters, including natural events like floods.
Climate change refers to long-term alterations in temperature, precipitation, wind patterns, and other elements of the Earth's climate system, often linked to human activities and resulting in increased frequency of extreme weather events.
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