Florin Manole accuses Dragoș Pîslaru of submitting false data to the European Commission

Romania risks losing funding from the National Recovery and Resilience Plan after the data reported for the target concerning the deinstitutionalization of people with disabilities was found to be non-compliant, Labor Minister Florin Manole said on Monday.

According to him, former European Funds Minister Dragoș Pîslaru allegedly reported people who had died as having been deinstitutionalized. Manole claims that nearly 500 other cases did not meet the established conditions or lacked supporting documents.

The general framework for meeting the target was reportedly established by July 8, 2026, and the file was handed over to the new leadership of the National Authority for the Protection of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities on July 10. The institution had until August 31 to verify the files.

At the beginning of September, the National Authority for the Protection of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities announced that the target had been reached, reporting 3,976 deinstitutionalized people. After the data was submitted to the European Commission, deaths, transfers, non-compliant living arrangements, and people who had not been institutionalized before 2020 were identified.

Following the re-verification, 478 cases were removed, reducing the figure to 3,498 people. The European Commission requested that the data be revised, and the Labor Minister says that applying a financial correction to Romania is inevitable. The information presented did not include a response from Dragoș Pîslaru to Florin Manole’s accusations.