The EU Commission on Friday announced its endorsement of a positive preliminary assessment regarding a 4th payment request by Greece for 2.3 billion euros worth of in loans the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF), the Union’s post-pandemic NextGenerationEU economic stimulus plan.
The development means that the Commission has preliminarily decided that Greece has reasonably completed the one target set out in a Council-implementing-decision for the fourth loan instalment – following a request that was submitted by Athens last April.
The Greek government had submitted plans for investment in areas of “green transition”, digitalization, boosting export capacity, economies of scale and innovation in the country’s economy and society.
According to a Commission press release, the “target in this payment request requires that a cumulative €4.5 billion of RRF loan contracts are signed by financial institutions with companies to support private investment. It is part of the Loan Facility, which is the largest measure in Greece’s recovery and resilience plan.”
The next step is for the preliminary assessment for the payment to be conveyed to the Economic and Financial Committee (EFC), which has four weeks to deliver an opinion. The fourth payment to Greece can take place following the EFC’s opinion, and the adoption of a payment decision by the Commission.
The Greek plan eyes financing of 18.2 billion euros in grants and 17.7 billion euros in loans. The payment request preliminary endorsed on Friday follows the country’s third payment request, which was endorsed by the Commission last November and disbursed in March.
The 4th payment request will raise the funds provided to Greece under the RRF to 17.2 billion euros, out of which 9.62 billion euros in loans – or 47% of all funding in the Greek plan.
