Today, EU economy and finance ministers approved the Czech National Recovery Plan, designed to help EU member states recover from the pandemic. The Czech Republic can already access the first part of the CZK 180 billion package in September. Photo Credit: Vlada.cz.
Czech Rep., Sep 6 (BD) – Today, the economy and finance ministers of EU member states approved the Czech National Recovery Plan, totaling CZK 180 billion of investment. These are packages designed for each EU member state to assist in their economic recovery after the pandemic. According to the plan, the Czech Republic is already eligible to receive the first part of the package this month.
13% of the recovery package is available for pre-financing projects this year, and the rest should be delivered in the coming years.
“I am very happy to announce some good news today. The Czech Republic and Ireland will soon be able to begin putting their recovery and resilience plans into effect. Implementation of member states’ envisaged reforms and investments will support the green and digital economic transition, helping our economy to recover from the pandemic and making it more resilient in the future,” said Andrej Šircelj, Finance Minister of Slovenia, which currently holds the EU presidency, after a ministerial video conference.
The Czech and Irish plans finalised today are among the 16 investment strategies approved so far, on the basis of which EU countries will share the money from a fund of 750 billion euros (over CZK 19 trillion). More than a dozen conditions include, for example, the requirement to devote at least 37% of the money to environmentally friendly projects, and a fifth to digitization, according to the Czech news outlet Ceske Noviny.
However, according to the European Commission, if the Czech Republic wants to collect its entire allocation, it must better address the issue of possible conflicts of interest of politicians.
“The Czech Republic, like all other countries, may receive 13% in pre-financing after the plan is approved, but the next payment will be associated with meeting eight well-defined milestones specifically related to this issue,” said EU Trade Commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis, when asked about the conflict of interest.
A Commission official told reporters in July after the approval of the Czech plan by the EU executive, that if the Czech authorities do not resolve the situation by the middle of next year, the Commission will not pay the money and can recover this year’s advances.
After the approval of the plan by the member states, the Czech Republic only has to sign a loan agreement with the Commission, which will then transfer the first funds. According to Dombrovskis, this could take one to two weeks.
