On Tuesday 19 January, the European Finance Ministers focussed on the preparation of the national recovery plans that the Member States must submit to the European Commission before the end of April as part of the Next Generation EU Recovery Plan.
During a discussion in which half of the Member States presented their work, the importance of including reforms in the national plans, in addition to the investments envisaged, was mentioned.
The need to strengthen the “reform component”, and to include the recommendations for socio-economic policy on a country by country basis was clearly mentioned, said a European source at the end of the Ecofin Council. On this issue, she added, several countries nevertheless stressed the importance of consulting stakeholders at the national level to ensure ownership and facilitate the implementation of a national plan.
On behalf of the European Commission, Valdis Dombrovskis felt that the work was progressing well, the idea being to work as far upstream as possible with the national delegations to facilitate rapid adoption of their national plans in the spring. At this stage, he said, “eleven Member States” have submitted a draft, while others have submitted only certain components.
The Vice-President of the European institution noted that the regulation establishing the Recovery and Resilience Facility, the budgetary instrument at the heart of Next Generation EU, which will officially be launched in February (see EUROPE 12626/1), requires that 37% and 20% of the plans be devoted to climate and digital targets respectively and that no project should be harmful to the climate or the environment (‘do not harm’ principle).
Furthermore, Mr Dombrovskis stressed the importance of demonstrating “a high level of ambition with regard to the country recommendations” and of “precisely defining the intermediate milestones and targets”, which, if achieved, would allow the disbursement of the tranches of financial assistance over the life of the Facility. The same goes for the establishment of robust control mechanisms to ensure that money is spent in accordance with what has been agreed.
On Monday, the president of the Eurogroup, Paschal Donohoe, had also mentioned the balance to be found between investments and reforms in the national recovery plans (see EUROPE 12638/4).
On the basis of recommendations from the Commission, it will be up to the EU Council to formally approve the national plans. As not all states will be ready at the same time, this adoption will take place by groups of countries, the source predicted. And they also mentioned the ongoing debate on the most appropriate internal EU Council body to make the decision, the Economic and Financial Committee having a stricter budgetary position (more ‘hawkish’) than other bodies. (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)