Skylakakis: Utilizing the Recovery Fund will keep Greece away from the risk of recession

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The payment request of €3.6 billion (grants: €1.72 billion and loans: €1.84 billion) was submitted on 30/9/2022, after the successful completion of the 28 planned milestones. What did Th. Skylakakis say?

THE European Commission issued today Friday a positive preliminary assessment for the second payment request from the Recovery and Resilience Fund (TAA) submitted by Greece, through the competent Deputy Minister of Finance Theodoros Skylakakis.

The payment request of €3.6 billion (grants: €1.72 billion and loans: €1.84 billion) was submitted on 30/9/2022, after the successful completion of the 28 planned milestones. Specifically, a single request was made because three milestones from the loan program were met earlier than originally planned.

According to the Ministry of Finance, Greece was within the top five countries who submitted a request for disbursement of the second payment from TAA. In fact, she was the first to file a request for the third payment (loan program).

It is noted that the first payment, also amounting to 3.6 billion euros, was disbursed on 8/4/2022. Earlier, on 9/8/2021, the pre-financing was disbursed, corresponding to 13% (3.96 billion euros) of the money allocated to Greece by the TAA.

In the procedural process, the Commission sent the evaluation of the Greek request to the Economic and Monetary Committee (EFC), requesting its opinion within four weeks, as defined by the relevant Regulation. This will be followed by the issuance of its final decision on the disbursement of 3.6 billion euros, after taking into account the relevant recommendation of the EFC.

Based on the data of the ministry, the course of implementation of the National Recovery and Resiliency Plan “Greece 2.0” is as follows:

– Subsidy program:

So far, 440 projects have been included in the “Greece 2.0” subsidy program, which have a total budget of 13.7 billion euros. They fall under the four main pillars of the Plan, namely “Green transition”, “Digital transition”, “Employment – Skills – Social Cohesion” and “Private investment and transformation of the economy”.

– Loans section:

To date, 224 investment projects have been submitted to the loan program, which is also the largest investment tool the country has ever had, which are at various stages provided for by “Greece 2.0” (e.g. evaluation, pre-approval , approval, contracting). The budget of these investment projects amounts to 8.44 billion euros (TAA loans: 3.58 billion euros, bank funds: 2.82 billion euros and own participation: 2.04 billion euros).

Already, loan contracts have been signed for 42 investment projects, with a total budget of 1.84 billion euros (TAA loans: 834.75 million euros, bank funds: 558.76 million euros and own participation: 450.11 million euros) . Of the 224 investment projects, 121, totaling 1.78 billion euros, come from small and medium-sized enterprises. At the same time, almost half of all the investment plans that have been submitted have been pre-approved by the investment committees of the credit institutions.

In the context of “Greece 2.0”, extremely favorable, stable, lending rates are foreseen (0.35% for very small and small businesses and 1% for medium and large ones).

As the Deputy Finance Minister stated, “today’s positive preliminary assessment by the Commission on the second payment request from the Recovery Fund, submitted by Greece at the end of last September, paves the way for 3.6 billion euros to flow directly into the domestic economy . Together with the first payment and the pre-financing, the amount that our country currently receives from this valuable, development tool, exceeds 11 billion euros. In conditions of extreme uncertainty, due to Russia’s war against Ukraine and the energy crisis, the investment utilization of the Recovery Fund and other European tools, combined with the uninterrupted implementation of our reform program is holding – and I believe it will hold in the future – Greece away from the danger of recession, which many other European countries will enter”.

RES-EMP

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