The European Commission has approved on Tuesday the disbursement of the pre-financing payment to Austria, Croatia, and Czechia in the framework of the Recovery and Resilience Facility. The payment, (respectively €450 million, €818 million, and €915 million) is equivalent to 13% of their respective financial allocations and will help member states to kick-start the implementation of crucial investments to support the Union’s objectives in terms of green and digital transitions.

Meanwhile, the Commission adopted on Monday a positive assessment of the Romanian recovery and resilience plan, marking an important step towards the disbursement of €14.2 billion in grants and €14.9 billion in loans. The Council will now assess the plan and once approved the Commission will be able to disburse €3.6 billion in pre-financing to Romania.

With these decisions by the European Commission, a total of 20 plans have been approved by the Commission, and 16 member states have already received their respective pre-financing.

By the end of the year the Commission intends to raise up to €80 billion in long-term funding, complemented by short-term EU bills to fund the first planned disbursements to member states under NextGenerationEU, the unprecedented plan worth €800 billion put together by the EU to emerge stronger from the Covid-19 crisis.