On Monday 19 July, the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, officially handed over to the Czech Prime Minister, Andrej Babiš, the European Union institution’s positive assessment of his country’s recovery plan.
The Czech plan, which will be endowed with “7 billion euros” in grants, will devote “41.6%” and “22%” of this envelope to the environmental and digital transitions respectively, Mr Babiš said. Claiming that he was not personally involved in the negotiations with the European Commission, he assured that the EU’s financial assistance would be disbursed “in full transparency and without systemic error”.
Ms von der Leyen recalled that each national plan includes milestones and reforms that must be met before a tranche of aid can be paid out. “The Czech plan contains specific milestones that exclude conflicts of interest and strengthen the audit and control systems and transparency. It includes the requirement to collect information on the personalities behind any entity receiving funds”, she stressed.
In early June, the European Parliament called for an end to the conflict of interest involving Mr Babiš, who is alleged to have enriched himself with EU agricultural and cohesion funds received by the Agrofert group, over which he still exercises control (see EUROPE 12738/2).
The Czech recovery plan is now forwarded to the EU Council, where Member States have one month to analyse and validate it.
The Ecofin Council has already formally approved twelve national plans, which is a necessary step for the pre-financing of a plan (see EUROPE 12761/1). On Monday 26 July, it is expected to validate those of the following countries: Slovenia, Lithuania, Cyprus, Croatia, and potentially Ireland.
In order to pre-finance an approved plan, States must sign a financing agreement with the European Commission. The speed of this step depends mainly on the countries concerned, a spokeswoman for the European institution, Veerle Nuyts, said on Monday, hoping that the pre-financing will take place “before the end of July”. (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)