EC greenlights Bulgaria’s third payment request under NextGenerationEU
The European Commission said on December 2 that it has partially greenlighted Bulgaria’s third payment request for 1.6 billion euro under the Recovery and Resilience Facility of the bloc’s NextGenerationEU post-pandemic economic recovery plan.
Bulgaria submitted the payment request in October. The Commission said that its assessment found that Bulgaria “delivered 22 reforms and 19 investments benefiting citizens and businesses, focusing on key areas such as the green and digital transition, research and innovation, healthcare, social protection, sustainable transport and modernisation of businesses.”
However, the Commission said that only 48 of 50 milestones corresponding to the reforms and investments associated with the third payment request were met, which is why it granted only partial approval.
The two milestones in question – setting up of an anti-corruption body and the entry into force of legal acts concerning the criminal proceedings and the accountability and criminal liability of the Prosecutor-General – have not been satisfactorily fulfilled at this stage, the Commission said.
As a result, the Commission proposed to temporarily defer a portion of the payment, without specifying the exact figure, saying that any amount withheld would be in accordance with the RRF Regulation.
The disbursement of the payment can be made after the Economic and Financial Committee, a body composed of senior officials from national administrations and central banks, the ECB and the EC, has issued an opinion on the Commission’s preliminary approval. It has four weeks to do so.
Last month, Bulgarian Prime Minister Rossen Zhelyazkov said that the Cabinet expected the third payment would be disbursed before the end of this year. He made no mention of the 2025 Budget deficit – which stood at nearly three per cent of gross domestic product at the end of October – but the injection of EU funds would help the government meet its three per cent target for the Budget deficit and avoid triggering the EU’s excessive deficit proceedings.
The Commission said that it has communicated to Bulgaria the reasons why it considers that two milestones are not satisfactorily fulfilled. Bulgaria now has one month to respond to this assessment.
If, after that, the Commission still considers the milestones not to be completed, it will temporarily withhold part of the payment, the EC said.
Bulgaria has already seen some funding deferred from the second NextGenerationEU payment request, submitted in July and approved by the EC in October.
Although Bulgaria asked for the payment of 653 million euro, the Commission disbursed 438.6 million euro, withholding funds related to the reform of the Anti-Corruption and Illegal Assets Forfeiture Commission.
Bulgaria is eligible for 6.17 billion euro in grants under its Recovery and Resilience Plan (RRP). It has met 38.2 per cent of milestones and targets outlined in the RRP and has received 29.5 per cent of the plan’s allocated amount, the European Commission said in November.
(Photo: G Schouten de Gel)
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