The Recovery Fund will end in 18 months and the Greek government will need to engage in a race to complete the 248 of the 383 remaining milestones in the National Recovery Plan “Greece 2.0”.
In this context and following contacts that Commission officials had with the Greek authorities, Greece will have to submit the revised “Greece 2.0” by Easter.
The challenges that Greece has to face are related to the subsidies from the Recovery Fund and in particular to identifying those projects that seem to be at risk of not being completed by August 2026, when the Recovery Fund ends.
No extension
Speaking at a European Commission conference, in collaboration with IOBE, the Deputy Director-General of the Commission’s Directorate for Economic and Financial Affairs, Declan Costello, clarified that there will be no extension for the Recovery Fund. “It is therefore useful to work with the Greek authorities and for them to make their proposals for revising the Plan,” while acknowledging that the task is difficult and is the most critical point.
The main goal is not to lose a single euro of the 9.6 billion euros of subsidies that remain to be disbursed to Greece. Competent sources appeared optimistic that Athens has an extremely high chance of absorbing all the resources from the subsidy component. And because time is precious, Greece is called upon to clarify which investments do not seem to be progressing and to proceed with corrective actions.
It is worth noting that it is particularly important not to miss out on investments that are milestones and have special significance as they may cost part of the installment with a value multiple of the budget of the specific investments. In some cases it can even reach 15 times higher than the amount of the investments that were not implemented.
76 reforms and 105 investments
One of the issues that seems to concern Brussels, although they recognize that the country has managed to absorb a significant amount in such a short period of time, is whether the public administration will manage to implement a program that includes 76 reforms and 105 investments.
Pending the decision to disburse the 5th installment from the Recovery Fund, most likely in March, so far our country has fulfilled 135 milestones, approximately 35.2% of the total (383) and has received approximately 51% of the subsidies. Of the 248 remaining milestones, 177 are linked to investments and 71 to reforms.
