In Luxembourg on Tuesday, 5 October, European finance ministers formally adopted the Maltese recovery plan in the context of the NextGenerationEU recovery plan.
The Maltese plan involves €316.4 million solely in the form of grants (see EUROPE 12792/25). For more information on this plan, consult the approval decision (https://bit.ly/3FaISAw ) and its annex (https://bit.ly/3B2Kh9A ).
Slovenian Minister of Finance Andrej Šircelj felt that the European Recovery Plan was going strong: at this stage, the Council of the EU has formally adopted 19 national plans, 16 of which have even received their pre-financing. “The funds are already flowing into the economy”, he said, pleased. “We have to keep this momentum.”
In particular, the Hungarian and Polish recovery plans are yet to be approved; Commissioner for Economy Paolo Gentiloni has simply indicated, “discussions [for these plans] are still ongoing”. Both of these plans could be given a conditional green light in November.
Mr Gentiloni also indicated that, in the autumn, the European Commission would present a new articulation between the monitoring of the European Recovery Plan’s implementation and the budgetary process of the ‘European Semester’, which will resume in 2022.
Asked by EUROPE about the possibility of the European Recovery Plan and the SURE instrument supporting national short-time working schemes being made permanent, Mr Šircelj said these initiatives were specifically designed to respond to a crisis situation.
Estonia. On Tuesday, the European Commission approved the Estonian recovery plan for €969.3 million, solely in the form of grants, in the context of the European Recovery Plan.
President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen, who was in Tallinn, noted that this plan will devote 42% of its allocation to climate objectives and 22% to the digital sector. She notably praised Estonia’s leadership in deploying “digital public services” and acknowledged that she had ridden in an autonomous bus for the first time.
Reporting an estimated 9.5% growth in national GDP for 2021, Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas believed that the national recovery plan would inject “additional stimulus” into the ‘Estonia 2035’ strategy, provided that it is used in an “intelligent and sensible” way.
More information on the Estonian plan: https://bit.ly/3BoHZBO (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)