This week’s payment of €3.6 billion (€1.7 billion in grants and €1.8 billion in loans) was made possible by Greece’s fulfilment of the 28 milestones and targets linked to the second instalment.
They cover reforms and investments promoting the use of renewable energy so as to make the electricity market fit for a high share of renewables, re-organising the railways sector to develop, operate and maintain a modern railway network, and opening up the public bus transportation market to improve services and to promote a greener bus fleet. Further, three of the milestones and targets concern the loan part of the Facility. In particular, with the signature of loan contracts worth at least €586.4 million between financial institutions and investors, Greece has fulfilled one of the targets of the loan facility early.
As for all Member States, payments under the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF) are performance-based and depend on the implementation by Greece of the investments and reforms described in its recovery and resilience plan. On 30 September 2022, Greece submitted to the Commission a second request for payment under the RRF related to 28 milestones and targets. On 25 November 2022, the Commission adopted a positive preliminary assessment of Greece’s request for payment. The favourable opinion of the Economic and Financial Committee of the Council on the payment request paved the way for the Commission to adopt a final decision on the disbursement of the funds.
The overall recovery and resilience plan of Greece will be financed by€17.4 billion in the form of grants and €12.7 billion in the form of loans. The amounts of payments made to Member States are published on the Recovery and Resilience Scoreboard, which shows the progress made in the implementation of the RRF as a whole and of the individual recovery and resilience plans. Greece already received a pre-financing payment of €4 billion on 9 August 2021, followed by a first payment under the RRF of €3.6 billion on 8 April 2022.
More information on the RRF payment claim process can be found in this Q&A document. More information on the Recovery and Resilience Plan Greece can be found here.
