Today, the Commission has endorsed a positive preliminary assessment of 20 out of the 21 milestones and targets linked to Slovakia's fifth payment request for €516.8 million in grants (net of pre-financing) under the Recovery and Resilience Facility , the centrepiece of NextGenerationEU.
The payment request covers important steps in the delivery of 14 reforms and 5 investments that will drive positive change for citizens and businesses in Slovakia in the areas of education, green transition, public health, social and health care, research and innovation, fight against corruption and digitalisation.
Flagship measures in this payment request include:
- Transition from coal in the Upper Nitra region: Slovakia has terminated the coal-based electricity production at Nováky power plant.
- New curriculum reform: Slovakia trained over 49 000 teachers to help them develop new teaching content and prepare for the new curriculum, inclusive education and to improve their digital skills.
The Commission found that one milestone has not been entirely fulfilled at this stage. It concerns an investment to adapt regions to climate change. It aimed to reach property settlements with private landowners in protected areas, primarily in national parks, with a view to preserving nature and biodiversity. The Commission therefore proposes to suspend part of the payment as foreseen by the applicable provisions. This procedure gives Member States additional time to fulfil outstanding milestones, while receiving a partial payment linked to the milestones that have been satisfactorily fulfilled.
Next steps
The Commission has now sent its positive preliminary assessment of the milestones and targets that it considers satisfactorily fulfilled to the Economic and Financial Committee (EFC), which has four weeks to deliver its opinion.
In parallel, the Commission has communicated to Slovakia the reasons why it considers the target on the property settlements with private landowners not satisfactorily fulfilled. Slovakia now has one month to submit its observations to the Commission.
Following the EFC's opinion on the positive preliminary assessment and after assessing the observations submitted by Slovakia, the Commission will adopt a payment decision, after which the payment to Slovakia can take place.
Should the Commission, following Slovakia's observations, confirm its assessment that the target in question has not been satisfactorily fulfilled, it will suspend part of the payment. The suspended amount is determined by applying the Commission's methodology for payment suspensions (outlined in Annex II of the Communication published on 21 February 2023), which applies to all Member States.
From that moment, Slovakia will have a period of six months to fulfil the outstanding milestone. At the end of this period, the Commission will assess whether the target has been satisfactorily fulfilled. If so, it will lift the suspension and proceed with the payment of the suspended amount.
Background
Slovakia's recovery and resilience plan includes a wide range of investment and reform measures. The plan will be financed by €6.4 billion in grants.
You can find more information on Slovakia's Recovery and Resilience plan on this page , which features an interactive map of projects financed by the RRF, as well as the Recovery and Resilience Scoreboard
