For an amount of EUR 998.6 million in grants (excluding pre-financing) the Commission has today approved a positive preliminary assessment of Greece’s fourth payment request, following the disbursement of Greece’s fourth loan payment request on 23 July 2024, under Recovery and Resilience Mechanism, which is the central tool of the Recovery Fund (NextGenerationEU).

Following the assessment of the payment request submitted on 6 June 2024, the Commission has reached the preliminary conclusion that Greece has satisfactorily completed the sixteen milestones and four targets set out in the annex to the Council’s implementing decision for the fourth tranche.

Eight reforms and twelve investments will promote positive changes for citizens and businesses in Greece in the areas of renewable energy and energy efficiency, water management and reforestation, healthcare, education and vocational training, taxation, justice system, and road and sports infrastructure.

The flagship measures of this payment request include:

  • Reforestation and fire prevention: The investment aims to restore degraded forests in Greece through reforestation and fire prevention measures, which will improve forest ecosystems and help prevent forest fires, such as those that hit Greece so badly this summer. Fire prevention measures will include forest and woodland clearing, forest road maintenance, clearing and pruning operations, and tree planting. As part of this payment request, Greece awarded contracts for the upgrading of 37,500 hectares of degraded forest ecosystems. This is the first part of a comprehensive fire prevention investment aimed at upgrading a total of 105,000 hectares of degraded forest ecosystems (the so-called “Anti-NERO program”), in addition to other reforestation, anti-erosion and anti-flooding actions.
  • Ensuring energy security and adapting the Greek electricity system to more renewable energy sources: These investments support the interconnection of the Cyclades electricity grid with mainland Greece and the installation of energy storage systems, enhancing energy security and electricity generation potential from renewable sources. The fourth payment request includes the awarding of contracts for the installation of electricity interconnection lines and the upgrading of the grid, in addition to a set of energy storage projects. These investments are the first steps in measures, upon completion of which more than 1 380 MW of energy storage projects will be in operation, and more than 350 km of submarine cables will have been installed.
  • Improvement of the information system in the field of justice: This reform aims at the digital transformation of the Greek judicial system, which until now was largely based on paper records, as well as recording and publication of decisions. A series of actions will expand the IT capabilities of the Greek justice system, such as the digitization of documents and court proceedings, the updating of records and the installation of interoperable information systems. This will contribute to improving the efficiency and effectiveness and speeding up the administration of justice in Greece, in order to avoid excessive length of court proceedings. With this payment request, Greece took steps to upgrade court record keeping systems and justice information systems. The reform will be completed and fully operational once the further elements that need to be met in order for the last payment request to be accepted are fulfilled.

The Commission has now sent its preliminary assessment of Greece’s fulfillment of the milestones and targets required for the payment in question to the Economic and Financial Committee (EFC), which must issue its opinion within four weeks . The payment in Greece can be made after the opinion of the ODE and the issuance of a payment decision by the Commission.