The deadline of 30 April for the presentation of the National Recovery and Resilience Plans to access Next Generation Eu funds is increasingly taking the form of a «soft deadline». The vice-president of the EU Commission, Valdis Dombrokskis, explained at the end of the Ecofin that “some recovery plans are more advanced than others, but It’s more important to take an extra week or two to make good plans, rather than just focusing on the deadline“. Italy intends to send the entire plan by the deadline, but there could be a final review by the Commission of some financial details after April 30 that could lengthen the time.
The Commissioner for the Economy, Paolo Gentiloni, at the end of the Eurogroup, answering a question, recalled that the change of government in Italy slowed down the work on the Recovery plan for a while, but he assured that it is proceeding “at maximum speed with the supervision of Draghi and the coordination of the Minister of Economy”. For now, I am in pole position in the presentation of the plans France, Spain, Greece and Portugal. While the Netherlands and Finland will not be able to meet the deadline. “The goal is still to try to approve all the plans before the summer break – said Dombrovskis -, in order to have the first disbursements in July».
The times are also tight for the disbursement of the advance equal to 13% of the total amount by the Commission, which cannot go to the markets to finance itself until the 27 EU states have ratified the decision on own resources. So far they have done so in 17. The expectation for completion is now for June, and no longer May. Meanwhile, the process of selecting the Chief Risk Officer should end in early May, there are 3 candidates in the short list. The financial ministers of the Euro Area also discussed the progress of theBanking union. ECB President Christine Lagarde urged the definition of one road map.