The European Commission on Monday made payments under the Recovery and Resilience Programme to the Czech Republic, Germany, Italy, Portugal and Romania, totalling €26.8 billion in loans and grants. Romania received only €37 million, without pre-financing, as part of its second payment request, according to the Commission.
On 15 December 2022, Romania submitted its second payment request, covering 51 milestones and targets. The Commission adopted a positive preliminary assessment of all but two milestones in September 2023. Milestones 129 and 133, relating to energy investments, were not satisfactorily met, leading to a suspension of €53.4 million, the European Commission said.
“Following Romania’s provision of additional information and progress on these milestones, the Commission has now released a gross amount of EUR 42.59 million. This includes EUR 17.78 million for milestone 133, which has been fully achieved, and EUR 24.8 million for milestone 129, where progress has been recognised, although the benchmark is not yet considered to be satisfactorily met,” the Commission said.
“The payment to Romania is EUR 37.05 million, after deduction of pre-financing. In parallel, due to the non-fulfilment of milestone 129, the Commission has reduced the total amount of the loan available to Romania by EUR 10.77 million,” the European Commission added.
So far, Romania has received a total of EUR 9.4 billion, out of the EUR 28.53 billion allocated to Romania’s recovery and resilience plan. Milestone 129 targeted investments in new electrolyzer capacities of at least 100 MW, and Milestone 133 targeted investments in high-efficiency gas-fired cogeneration and district heating.