It is a pleasure to participate in the first Recovery and Resilience Dialogue in the new mandate.
Over the previous mandate, I deeply valued our cooperation and engaged in all 16 previous dialogues.
I look forward to continuing our excellent collaboration in this forum in the years ahead.
The implementation of the RRF is making well, though it requires continuous efforts and attention.
As we speak, we are assessing 23 ongoing payment requests, amounting to more than €67 billion.
The implementation of the RRF is set to accelerate this year, with a substantial increase in the number of payment requests.
Overall, we expect around half of all milestones and targets will be fulfilled by the end of the year.
This momentum is positive given the high economic uncertainty.
As we move forward, payment requests tend to come together with targeted plan revisions to remove implementation bottlenecks.
The Commission is currently assessing revisions to five Recovery and Resilience Plans – for Lithuania, Austria, Portugal, Poland and Ireland – and the Council will soon adopt a revision of the Latvian and Belgian plans.
As the 2026 deadline approaches, we must remain focused on delivering the reforms and investments set out in the plans.
So this year will be crucial for delivery.
The Commission will continue to do its part to help Member States accelerate the implementation of their plans.
Recent revisions of national plans have been useful to frontload already achieved milestones and targets, while making sure that the payment schedules retain the incentives for implementation.
We are also asking Member States to review the timelines for each project, so as to identify any measures at risk and take remedial actions, such as reinforcing administrative capacity or refocusing on more mature alternatives.
In addition, partial payments also help to avoid delays to an entire payment request on account of just a few milestones or targets.
Member States can use the additional time to conclude unfinished business while getting paid for the results already achieved.
Now allow me to turn to issues related to the transparency and accountability of the RRF.
Following the recommendations made by the European Parliament during the discharge procedure in 2023, the Commission has made significant efforts to further reinforce the quality and transparency of the information provided on the RRF.
Since 2023, we have started regular updates on the 100 largest final recipients of funds for the implementation of RRF measures in each Member State.
The Commission regularly reminds Member States to provide these updates and requests improvements to the submitted data where it is not in line with the requirements.
In the discharge hearing we had before Christmas, some MEPs drew the Commission's attention to errors in some lists.
The Commission followed up with the relevant authorities and these issues are being resolved.
Some Member States even go beyond the obligation in the Regulation and provide more data on the recipients of funds.
The Commission encourages all Member States to follow their example and will organise exchanges of best practices to this goal.
Moreover, our public map of projects supported by the RRF keeps growing, with now more than 1,800 projects included.
This allows the public to see the real impact that the RRF is having across Europe.
We are also continuing intense cooperation with the European Court of Auditors.
Last autumn, the ECA published three special reports on the RRF.
The first report reviewed the absorption of RRF funds.
The data used in this report had a cut-off date in late 2023, so more than a year ago - s the situation is much different today.
Nonetheless, it shows progress in implementation of the national plans.
The audit also reports some delays, which were largely due to the economic and supply-chain effects of Russia's invasion of Ukraine and revision of plans to include REPowerEU chapters.
The implementation has since accelerated
The second report concerned the RRF's contribution to the green transition.
It confirmed that the RRF's quantitative climate target resulted in the inclusion of substantial climate measures in recovery and resilience plans, even though ECA chose to apply a different tagging methodology than the one agreed by this House.
The third report looked at possible risks of double funding between the RRF and cohesion funds.
The audit did not identify any actual case of double funding but recommended that the Commission implements more checks.
While there are some disagreements on legal concepts, and there is always room for improvement, overall we consider that this audit demonstrates that there are sound controls in place.
Finally, as in previous years, ECA's annual report has a dedicated chapter on the 2023 RRF payments.
Out of 452 milestones and targets examined, the Court identified seven where it does not share the Commission's view of the actual fulfilment of milestones, and nine eligibility issues, explained solely by ECA's different reading of the RRF legal base.
Overall, therefore, the ECA agreed with 97.9% of the Commission's assessments on the fulfilment of milestones and targets. So, it's quite a positive result.
We were also able to accept all the recommendations contained in the report, except one, and have already implemented many of them.
For the next steps of the 2023 discharge, we will keep cooperating closely with the Parliament and we will strive to implement any feasible recommendations that might be issued to us in a timely manner.
To conclude, in this new mandate, as in the previous one, the scrutiny and support of the European Parliament will remain essential to the successful implementation of the RRF.
Your work is fundamental for the democratic accountability of this unprecedented instrument.
We will of course need to draw lessons towards the next multi-annual financial framework about what worked best and what could be improved from the RRF.
We have already had some discussion on this in the past, and we continue to draw lessons.
Overall, however, progress with the delivery of investments and reforms has already made a real difference for millions of citizens and businesses.
Let us continue with this good work and press ahead with it, in view of the 2026 deadline, which is not so far away.
We count on your continued engagement and support.
