Belgium, Italy, Austria, and Slovenia have submitted their national recovery plans as part of the Next Generation EU recovery plan , the European Commission said in a statement on Saturday 1 May.
In total, almost half of the Member States met the 30 April deadline for the formal submission of their plans, in line with the deadline set in the regulation establishing the Recovery and Resilience Facility, the budgetary instrument at the heart of Next Generation EU (see EUROPE 12626/1).
The 13 countries are Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Latvia, Luxembourg, Portugal, Slovenia, Slovakia, and Spain.
The Commission, which has been in close dialogue with all capitals, now has 2 months to assess each plan and transcribe them into legislation which the EU Council will then have one month to assess and adopt.
It should be noted that a State has until August 2023 to apply for the loan component of EU financial assistance, for amounts up to 6.8% of its gross national income. If this is the case, it will have to produce a modified plan justifying this request and presenting the milestones for verifying the implementation of the modified plan.
The loans required through Next Generation EU will benefit from a favourable interest rate, but will weigh on the national public debt.
Countries that cannot borrow on their own at a rate as competitive as the interest rates obtained through EU loans are expected to consider this.
Italy has indicated that it will appeal (see EUROPE 12706/13).
In parallel, all States must ratify the decision on own resources for the EU budget, which is a prerequisite for the Commission to be allowed to borrow the necessary funds on the financial markets on behalf of the EU.
The first payments of aid are expected this summer.
See the national recovery plans: https://bit.ly/3xDW6C9 (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)