Council chair says plans from the Netherlands and Bulgaria are expected “shortly”
The European Commission has asked the Hungarian government for more time to assess its plan for how it will use its share of the EU’s €750 billion Covid-19 recovery fund, and is mulling a similar extension for Poland.
Many countries want to use part of their share to fund research, innovation and education activities, but first their plans must be approved by the Commission and then fellow national governments in the Council of the EU. The plans are checked against criteria including the proportion of funds devoted to environmental sustainability and digitisation.
The most recent Commission approval was of Czechia’s plan on 19 July, following its submission on 2 June. The Council is set to formally approve the plans of Croatia, Cyprus, Lithuania and Slovenia in the coming days, taking the total number of fully approved plans to 16.
But Valdis Dombrovskis, the Commission’s vice-president for the economy, said on 26 July that his institution had asked Hungary for another two months to assess its plan. Media have reported that the Commission is concerned about Hungary’s proposed anti-corruption measures.
“What we have proposed to Hungarian authorities is [an] extension until 30 September,” Dombrovskis said.
He also said the Polish government had asked for an extension of its assessment deadline and that the Commission was not ruling this out. “It’s not excluded that we will require still more time,” he said.
Speaking at the same press conference, the Slovenian finance minister, Andrej Šircelj, who chaired a meeting of EU finance ministers under the July-December Slovenian presidency of the Council earlier that day, said he expected the two plans that have not yet been submitted for assessment—from the Netherlands and Bulgaria—to be received “shortly”.
Both Bulgaria and the Netherlands have undergone changes of government during the period in which plans were supposed to have been prepared. Research organisations in the Netherlands have expressed alarm at the country’s failure to submit its plan.