The Slovenian Presidency of the Council of the European Union has called an extraordinary ministerial meeting of EU Finance Ministers for Monday 6 September, at which the EU Council will approve the Irish and Czech recovery plans as part of the Next Generation EU recovery plan.
The formal adoption of the two national plans will take place at a later stage by written procedure, which will be launched next Monday. The issue is on the agenda of the Member States’ ambassadors to the EU (Coreper) on Wednesday, 1 September, but is not expected to be discussed.
The European Commission proposed the adoption of the €7 billion Czech plan in mid-July, in the form of grants only, during a visit to Prague by Commission President Ursula von der Leyen (see EUROPE 12765/16). It had done the same a few days earlier in Dublin with the Irish plan, which was endowed with 989 million euros, also in the form of grants (see EUROPE 12764/15).
The adoption of the Irish and Czech plans will bring the number of national recovery plans formally approved by the EU Council to 18. Only these plans are entitled to receive pre-financing of up to 13% of their overall allocation from the Commission.
The Commission indicated that pre-financing will continue “in September” for these plans, with financial agreements to be signed between the EU institution and each beneficiary country beforehand.
At this stage, the Commission has already paid €48.5 billion in pre-financing to nine Member States (see EUROPE 12777/11). It is still assessing the plans of seven other Member States: Estonia, Finland, Hungary, Malta, Poland, Romania and Sweden. Bulgaria and the Netherlands have yet to submit their national recovery plans at European level. (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)