It is an honour to be back in this House for our 18th Recovery and Resilience Dialogue, the second one of this mandate.
The RRF continues to support the green and digital transition and to deliver for European citizens and businesses.
Approximatively 41% of the relevant milestones and targets for the green transition pillar and 42% of those contributing to the digital transformation have been self-reported by the Member States, or assessed by the Commission as completed.
Let me share a couple of examples of recent developments.
We have seen many reforms to streamline permitting, planning and environmental impact assessments. For instance, Estonia presented measures aimed at speeding-up the transition to clean energy in its latest payment request disbursed two weeks ago.
Many SMEs have also received funding for digital projects. For instance, 550 SMEs in Denmark, as part of the latest payment request that will be disbursed soon.
Member States are also achieving progress on reforms and investments that improve social policy and healthcare.
One recent example is the training of medical staff in 67 hospitals in the Netherlands to alleviate shortages in intensive and clinical care units – also as part of their latest payment request, for disbursement in the coming days.
As mentioned by Raffaele, progress continues on the ground and ongoing and upcoming payment requests include important reforms and investments.
So, we must continue to press ahead with implementation.
Turning now to the transparency and accountability of the RRF, this remains an important area of focus for Member States and the Commission.
We keep on working on strengthening transparency regarding the final recipients of RRF funds.
This is a particular concern for this House, as well as for the Commission, because transparency provisions in the RRF Regulation are not as comprehensive as under the recast Financial Regulation.
However, the Commission supports the request from the Parliament to go further, and has conveyed to all Member States the request of the CONT committee to receive the names of the 100 final entities or natural persons that have received the largest amounts of funds under the RRF, including contractors and subcontractors.
This follows on from our previous exchanges in these dialogues and in the discharge procedure, including the recent letter from Niclas Herbst to the Commission on this issue.
In the letter, we also remind Member States of their obligations on data collection and reporting under the RRF Regulation.
And we have convened a meeting with Member States, later this week, to further discuss these issues, as part of the regular work of the informal expert group on RRF implementation.
This group also serves to present and share best practices.
Let me now turn to our work with the European Court of Auditors.
The ECA has published two special reports since we last met.
The first one was focused on Member States' systems for ensuring compliance with public procurement and state-aid rules under the RRF, and was published on 10 March.
It notes an improvement in the control framework of the RRF, thanks to the collaborative efforts of the Commission and Member States working together to strengthen the control system over time, in accordance with their respective responsibilities.
The Commission has accepted almost all recommendations in the report and will use its findings to further strengthen its audits.
The second special report is focused on labour market reforms and was published last week.
It confirms that the RRF has significantly contributed to addressing long-standing structural challenges and reform needs identified in the European Semester.
Even if the impact of some reforms will take time to materialise, we consider that they have been well targeted at addressing the issues identified in country-specific recommendations.
The Commission welcomes both reports, and is looking forward to the upcoming ones, including the special report on the contribution of the RRF to the digital transition, which is expected soon.
And we continue our regular and intense exchanges with the ECA, as the Court prepares its next annual report and five others.
Honourable Members, I will now turn onto the state of play with implementation.
Earlier this month I attended the ECOFIN Council meeting, which was a good opportunity to stress some key messages:
- Member States have only 18 months left to fulfil 5,000 milestones and targets and request all outstanding payments.
- It is therefore more important than ever that they speed up implementation and stick to the timelines foreseen to present payment requests and produce the necessary evidence.
- In addition, they must also remove any measures from the plans that are no longer achievable by the RRF's legal deadline.
The Commission stands ready to support Member States on all these directions, as we have done over the past months and years.
Yet, we must all keep in mind that the margin for manoeuvre is narrowing as we approach the end of the Facility.
As you know, the RRF Regulation foresees that all milestones and targets need to be met by August 2026 and all payments must be made by December 2026, and also the Own Resources Decision requires all net borrowing to take place by the end of 2026.
Given these limitations, we have encouraged all Member States to carefully re-examine the implementation of their plans and take immediate action where needed by requesting a targeted revision.
Member States can make use of several options, such as:
- scaling up existing measures that work well,
- supporting capital injections,
- introducing or expanding successful financial instruments,
- making use of transfers to InvestEU,
- or splitting projects to retain the parts that are achievable by August 2026.
These options can help Member States to find viable alternatives to replace existing measures that can no longer be achieved on time.
And the time to do those changes is now.
So, we are engaging closely with the Member States for this purpose.
To conclude, there is still a lot of work ahead of us to make the most out of the RRF before it reaches its end.
The Facility has already delivered great benefits to European citizens and businesses.
For the first time, an EU instrument has helped to deliver both reforms and investments, in a coherent manner, responding to both country-specific challenges and common EU priorities.
And we have already achieved a high absorption rate, compared with previous experiences and other European instruments.
Yet, the situation differs across Member States and the work is far from over.
So let us continue with our efforts to make the most of this unique opportunity. Your support will remain essential for that.
