Honourable Chairs, Honourable Members, it is a pleasure to be here with you again to discuss the current state of play of the RRF.
When we last met in early October, we said that the coming months would be busy and critical for the Facility. Since that time, we have made a great deal of progress.
Just last Friday, the Council endorsed 13 revised recovery and resilience plans – for Belgium, Greece, Poland, Croatia, Cyprus, Romania, Germany, Latvia, Bulgaria, Italy, Ireland, Hungary and Finland.
It means that all Member States now have a revised plan adopted. And, since we last spoke, just over €19 billion have been disbursed to Member States as they have met additional milestones and targets.
The end of this year marks the midpoint of the RRF's lifecycle. We can already see the next wave of payment requests arriving, most recently from Finland and Czechia.
Despite challenges posed by a high cost of living, weak external demand and monetary tightening, the Commission's autumn forecast indicates a sustained increase in investment, largely attributed to the RRF's influence.
In this context, it will be crucial that Member States continue with the steady implementation of the RRF. At the same time, in 2024 several Member States will have to catch up on delays.
With all revised plans now adopted by Council, we can commit the remaining 30% of RRF grants and RRF loans by the end of the year.
Overall, we expect to commit nearly €150 billion in additional resources by the end of the year, of which €125.5 billion are loans. This shows the continued attractiveness of the RRF loans and of the Facility in general.
These revisions have been an opportunity to address administrative bottlenecks, respond to new needs and cater for objective circumstances such as high inflation and supply chain disruptions.
23 of the revised plans also include REPowerEU chapters. The substantial loan uptake, combined with the REPowerEU grants, amplify the RRF's impact and will further accelerate the green transition.
More than 42% of RRF funds, totalling €275 billion, are already flowing into green projects. The 23 REPowerEU chapters adopted by the Council are injecting an additional €50 billion into climate efforts.
Along with new investments and reforms, the REPowerEU chapters also scale-up existing measures to boost energy efficiency, deploy even more renewables and improve energy security.
For instance, most chapters will deal with significant improvements into planning and permitting procedures, incentivising private investments into renewable energy sources by reducing administrative hurdles.
I will now present an overview of where we stand with disbursements. Up until now, RRF disbursements amount to a total of €175 billion.
This amount has been reached thanks to the hard work of Member States and Commission services to present and assess 28 payment requests, following the fulfilment of the relevant milestones and targets.
An additional 12 payment requests are currently being processed, amounting to €40 billion. Of those, 7 have already been positively assessed by the Commission – for Greece, France, Croatia, Germany, Italy, Slovenia and Slovakia – and we expect to make the payments by the end of the year.
This would bring us over €200 billion for disbursements.
We do need to remember, of course, that these disbursements represent measurable achievements on the ground.
Just last week, we also disbursed the first pre-financing payment under REPowerEU to France, worth €564 million. These payments were agreed by co-legislators to help kickstart the implementation of REPowerEU measures – speeding up the decoupling from Russian fossil fuels and accelerating the green transition.
Next year, the European Semester will continue to monitor the implementation of the RRF and cohesion policy, with a particular focus on exploiting synergies and complementarities with each other.
The RRF plays a crucial role in complementing cohesion policy through transformative reforms. These reforms are designed to remove investment bottlenecks, facilitate the rollout of investments at both national and EU levels, and address longstanding structural challenges.
Examples include streamlining permitting processes for green transition projects, advancing digitalization in public administration, and creating a more investment-friendly climate by addressing regulatory hurdles.
For example, Spain is receiving cohesion policy funds to finance water management systems, with about half of the measures benefitting less developed and transition regions. At the same time, the Spanish RRP updates the Water Law, its regulations and other secondary legislation, to provide a legal environment that encourages these investments.
The Greek RRP includes a reform to make the Greek railway sector more efficient by reorganising several companies in charge of operations and investments. This will further enable the rail investments supported by cohesion policy and the Connecting Europe Facility.
To conclude, Honourable Members – there is much work ahead of us. Now that the Commission has assessed, and Council has approved and adopted the revised plans, all elements are now in place to catch up with delays.
It is now for Member States to quickly carry out their ambitious reform and investment packages.
With this, I give the floor to Paolo to outline the main achievements and state of play of RRF implementation. Thank you.
