NextGenerationEU: Commission disburses second payment of EUR2.76 billion to Romania under the Recovery and Resilience Facility

Today’s payment of €2.76 billion in grants and loans was made possible by Romania’s fulfilment of 49 milestones and targets linked to the second instalment. They cover key reforms in the areas of the green and digital transition, such as the adoption of the decarbonisation law and the entry into force of the law for the governance of cloud services deployed in the public sector. Romania has also put forward reforms to improve its public policy delivery, promote tourism and culture, develop human resources in the health sector, improve tax collection and the sustainability of pensions, modernise the education system’s infrastructure, as well as to strengthen the independence of the judiciary and the fight against corruption.

Payments under the RRF are performance-based and contingent on Romania implementing the investments and reforms outlined in its recovery and resilience plan.

On 16 December 2022, Romania submitted to the Commission a second request for payment of €2.8 billion under the RRF, covering 51 milestones and targets. On 27 June 2023, the Commission adopted a partially positive preliminary assessment of Romania’s request for payment, having found that two milestones related to energy investments had not been satisfactorily fulfilled. The Commission acknowledged the first steps already taken by Romania to fulfil these outstanding milestones, though important work remains to be done. The steps to be taken under the ‘payment suspension’ procedure to give Member States additional time to fulfil outstanding milestones, are explained in this Q&A document.

The opinion of the Economic and Financial Committee on Romania’s payment request has paved the way for the Commission to adopt a decision on the disbursement of the funds linked to the 49 milestones and targets that have been assessed as satisfactorily fulfilled.

The overall recovery and resilience plan of Romania will be financed by more than €29 billion in grants and loans. The amounts of payments made to Member States are published on the Recovery and Resilience Scoreboard. Romania already received a total pre-financing payment of €3.7 billion in December 2021 and January 2022 and €2.6 billion in October 2022, following the fulfilment of the 21 milestones and targets included in the first payment request.

(For more information: Veerle Nuyts — Tel.: + 32 2 299 63 02; Tommaso Alberini – Tel: +32 2 295 70 10)