“Green light” for the payment of the second installment Recovery Fund, worth about 3.6 billion euros, the European Commission announced today, responding positively to a request submitted by the government on 30 September. The tranche consists of approximately €1.7 billion in grants and approximately €1.8 billion in loans and is expected to be disbursed in early 2023.

It is worth noting that the program did not provide loans in this tranche, but since Greece met the relevant milestones – preconditions – ahead of schedule, loans of 1.8 billion euros were also approved.

In particular, milestones for loans were the activation of Invest EU, the activation of the equity investment fund program and the processing of loans of at least 586 million euros.

Greece is one of the first countries for which the second tranche of the Recovery Fund has been approved. It has already raised 4 billion euros as an advance in 2021 and 3.5 billion euros as a down payment last April. According to the second tranche, the total amount of resources developed by our country is 11.1 billion euros.

Next steps

The Commission sent a positive preliminary assessment of the fulfillment of the preconditions and stages required by Greece to the Economic and Tax Committee (EFC), seeking its opinion.

The opinion of the ODE, which will be published within four weeks, must be taken into account in the Commission’s assessment. After the conclusion of the ODE, the Commission makes a final decision on the payment of the financial contribution in accordance with the examination procedure through the comitological commission. After a decision by the Commission, payment to Greece can be made.

Von der Leyen’s statement

“Great news for Greece today,” said European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. “The country has made sufficient progress in implementing its national recovery plan to receive a second payment under NextGenerationEU. As soon as the Member States give the green light, Greece will receive 3.6 billion euros.

Greece is pushing ahead with ambitious reforms in key sectors such as renewable energy, rail infrastructure, public transport and the digitalization of small and medium enterprises. It also encourages new investment in tourism, manufacturing and agriculture.

Importantly, he also fulfilled his obligation to protect taxpayers’ money. Well, congratulations Greece! The road to recovery continues, and the Commission stands with you.”