As preparations for national recovery plans enter their final phase, the European Commission urged Member States at the video conference meeting of EU Finance Ministers on Friday 16 April to focus on the quality of their plans rather than on the speed.
The implementation of the Recovery and Resilience Facility, the budgetary instrument at the heart of the Next Generation EU Recovery Plan (see EUROPE 12654/1), was indeed at the forefront of the Ecofin Council meeting. The “as a rule” deadline for submitting national plans to the European level, 30 April, is fast approaching.
The European Commission has received information from 26 out of 27 Member States on what they intend to include in their plans. However, progress between countries varies, European Commission Executive Vice-President Valdis Dombrovskis said at a press conference after the meeting.
The countries that have made the most progress are Portugal, Spain, France and Greece, but others will need more time.
Portuguese Finance Minister João Leão said it was time to “move up a gear” so that all plans could be approved by the summer.
This is all the more urgent as a number of countries continue to face a third wave of Covid-19, he stressed, even if the impact on the economy remains less severe than last year. “It has been a difficult winter, but we are slowly starting to see signs of recovery and the economic results are getting better”, he said.
The Commission expects the “vast majority” of Member States to submit their plans by the end of April or a few weeks later.
Mr Dombrovskis also said that in order to ensure a “rapid assessment” of the plans, Member States should ensure their quality and that they meet all the requirements of the Recovery and Resilience Facility.
“From that point of view it is probably more important to leave a week or two more to improve the quality of a plan if needed than to concentrate on that particular date”, he said.
Some Member States, whose plans have been under discussion with the Commission for a long time, would indeed like to reduce the assessment period for national plans by 2 months (see EUROPE 12699/14).
Asked whether the two-month deadline was appropriate for the Portuguese plan, for example, which has been under discussion with the Commission for several months now, the Executive Vice-President pointed out that there were still “a number of formal requirements” that need to be assessed by the Commission. On top of that, he said, a large number of plans are likely to be submitted at the same time, which will require some processing capacity.
In order to release these funds, the Member States must have ratified the ‘own resources for the EU budget’ decision. So far, 17 have done so.
The Portuguese Presidency, like the Commission, remains confident that the remaining 10 Member States will be able to ratify this decision by June, allowing the Commission to make the first disbursement in July. (Original version in French by Marion Fontana)