The Council yesterday approved the Commission’s positive assessment of the amended recovery and resilience plans submitted by the Netherlands, Portugal, Slovakia, and Spain.
According to the analysis of the Commission, the targeted modifications do not affect the relevance, effectiveness, efficiency, and coherence of their recovery and resilience plans.
The Netherlands
The Netherlands has submitted a request to change 17 measures. The request for amendment was done because of measures being unachievable, the implementation of better alternatives, and reduction of administrative burden. The plan is now worth €5.4 billion.
Portugal
The revisions which Portugal requested on 3 February 2025 regard 108 measures. They relate to implementing better alternatives, reducing administrative burden and replacing unachievable measures. The plan is still worth around €22 billion in grants and loans.
Slovakia
The Slovakian amendments concern 57 measures. Amendments have for instance been made as better alternatives for the implementation exist. The estimated total cost of the plan remains at €6.4 billion.
Spain
On 21 March 2025, Spain made a request to amend its recovery and resilience plan. The amendment concerns 12 measures. They concern, among other things, reducing administrative burden and removing unnecessary procedural elements. For one target Spain requested an extension due to the floods of October 2024, which made the target unachievable. The value of the plan remains unchanged at €163 billion in grants and loans.
Background
The RRF is the EU’s large-scale financial support programme in response to the challenges the COVID-19 pandemic has posed to the European economy. It is the centrepiece of NextGenerationEU, a temporary recovery instrument that allows the Commission to raise funds to help repair the immediate economic and social damage caused by the pandemic.
To benefit from the facility, member states must submit recovery and resilience plans (RRPs) to the Commission, setting out the reforms and investments they intend to implement by the end of August 2026.
To date, all RRPs have been approved, 86 payment requests have been received and more than €311 billion have been disbursed.
