Finland submits request to modify recovery and resilience plan to add a REPowerEU chapter

Yesterday, Finland submitted a request to the Commission to modify its recovery and resilience plan to add a REPowerEU chapter to it.

Finland’s proposed REPowerEU chapter would add two new investments, one scaled-up investment and one new reform to the existing plan, thereby further boosting Finland’s ambitious target of achieving carbon neutrality by 2035. The investments will boost new technologies for renewable energy and hydrogen production, including offshore wind power in Åland, and the related R&D, whereas the new reform aims at streamlining and facilitating investment permit procedures related to renewable energy projects.

Finland has requested to transfer part of its share of the Brexit Adjustment Reserve (BAR), amounting to €14.2 million, to its recovery and resilience plan. Together with its RRF and REPowerEU grants allocations (€1.8 billion and 113 million, respectively), these additional funds make the submitted modified plan worth €1.95 billion.

The Commission has now up to two months to assess whether the modified plan fulfils all the assessment criteria in the RRF Regulation. If the Commission’s assessment is positive, it will make a proposal for an amended Council Implementing Decision to reflect the changes to the Finnish plan. The Council will then have up to four weeks to endorse the Commission’s assessment.