• The mayoralty of Pojejena, of the county of Caraş-Severin, will put up for sale 469.8 hectares of woodland to raise around EUR 705,000 to be able to co-finance projects with European funding
In their rush for European funding, an increasing number of local administrations resort to unusual methods to come up with the money needed for co-financing projects based on European funding.
One such case is that of the mayoralty of Pojejena, of the county of Caraş Severin, which is selling off its 469.8 hectares of woodland to raise money for investments.
The starting price was set at EUR 1500/hectare, which would allow the mayoralty to raise around EUR 705,000.
The mayor of the commune, Omer Radovancovici, who is a forest technician, said that the sale was justified due to the large maintenance costs and to the need for funds in order to cofinance the European projects which the mayoralty had already accessed.
Mayor Radovancovici said: "There were two reasons behind our decision to sell the woodland. The first is the fact that we are suffering great losses due to due to illegal logging, since we can"t afford the surveillance expenses. The second reasons is that we are looking to secure funding for the co-financing of European projects. We have accessed four projects worth around 7 million Euros, and we need money for their co-financing".
The woodland is the property of the mayoralty, and the mayor said that the issue of retrocession has been resolved.