Today, the European Commission endorsed a positive preliminary assessment of Slovenia’s first payment request for €50 million of grants under the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF), the key instrument at the heart of NextGenerationEU.
On 20 October 2022, Slovenia submitted to the Commission a payment request based on the achievement of the 12 milestones selected in the Council Implementing Decision for the first instalment. They cover reforms enabling the digitalisation of enterprises and strengthening the governance for the digital transformation of the public administration, as well as reforms of the labour market and of the business environment. Slovenia has also put forward incentives for the tourism sector, reductions in the administrative burden for citizens and businesses and measures to foster the digitalisation and efficiency of public procurement. It has also set up indicators for measuring the quality of long-term care services.
With their request, the Slovenian authorities provided detailed and comprehensive evidence demonstrating the fulfilment of the 12 milestones. The Commission has thoroughly assessed this information before presenting its positive preliminary assessment of the payment request.
The Slovenian recovery and resilience plan includes a wide range of reform measures in 16 thematic components. The plan will be supported by € 1.5 billion in grants, 16% of which (€231 million) was disbursed to Slovenia in pre-financing on 17 September 2021.
Payments under the RRF are performance-based and contingent on Member States implementing the investments and reforms outlined in their respective recovery and resilience plans.
Next steps
The Commission has now sent its positive preliminary assessment of Slovenia’s fulfilment of the milestones required for this payment to the Economic and Financial Committee (EFC), asking for its opinion. The EFC’s opinion, to be delivered within a maximum of four weeks, should be taken into account in the Commission’s assessment. Following the EFC’s opinion, the Commission will adopt the final decision on the disbursement of the financial contribution, in accordance with the examination procedure, through a comitology committee. Following the adoption of the decision by the Commission, the disbursement to Slovenia can take place.
The Commission will assess further payment requests by Slovenia based on the fulfilment of the milestones and targets outlined in the Council Implementing Decision, reflecting progress on the implementation of the investments and reforms.
The amounts disbursed to the Member States are published in the Recovery and Resilience Scoreboard, which shows progress of the implementation of the national recovery and resilience plans.