July the 22nd, 2024 – The European Commission announced on Friday that it has paid Croatia 821.7 million euros under the Recovery and Resilience Mechanism.
As Poslovni Dnevnik writes, 555.7 million euros of the aforementioned sum paid to Croatia from the European Commission refer to grants, while 266 million euros refer to loans.
As is the case with all other EU Member States, payments to Croatia from the European Commission are performance-based. This means that they depend on how the country in question actually implements the investments and reforms described in its National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NRRP/NPOO), the European Commission’s Representation in Zagreb announced.
On April the 15th of this year, Croatia submitted its fifth payment request in the amount of 821.7 million euros under the Recovery and Resilience Mechanism, which includes 25 key stages and 12 target values. This includes reforms and investments in the field of digitisation, public administration, sustainable transport, the management of the water supply and public drainage, tourism, justice, education and healthcare.
Almost two months later on June the 12th, the European Commission passed a positive preliminary assessment of the Croatian request for payment. The favourable opinion of the Economic and Financial Affairs Committee in the Council on the payment request allowed the EU’s executive body to take the final decision on the payment of the funds to Croatia, according to the statement.
Prime Minister Andrej Plenković boasted last week that Croatia is currently the most successful country in the European Union when it comes to implementing the National Recovery and Resilience Plan.
With this latest hefty tranche, “Croatia will receive a total of more than 4.5 billion euros of absorption from the next generation EU Instrument”, he added. The total amount allocated for the National Recovery and Resilience Plan for Croatia is otherwise slightly more than 10 billion euros.
