Greece to receive € 4 billion from European Commission under RRF. The disbursed amount is 13% of € 30.5 billion, which Greece will receive over the lifetime of its plan
The European Commission today, i.e., Tuesday, August 10, 2021, disbursed € 4 billion to Greece in pre-financing under the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF).
The disbursed amount is 13% of € 30.5 billion, which Greece will receive over the lifetime of its plan. Of this, € 17.8 billion would be in grants and € 12.7 billion would be in loans.
Greece will invest 38% of its total funds in green transition. This will include financing the interconnection with the Cyclades Islands, increasing the potential for renewable energy sources as well as storage capacity. The total cost for all these measures would be € 645 million. It will also spend € 1.3 billion for renovation of more than 100,000 residences to increase energy efficiency, including the low-income households.
For sustainable mobility, it plans to install more than 8,000 charging points for electric vehicles and replace 220 urban transport busses in Athens and Thessaloniki with electric vehicles. It will also create cycling and pedestrian pathways to create an “urban promenade” along the Athens Riviera. The cost of promoting sustainable mobility will be in tune of € 264 million
Taking it to twitter, the President of European Commission – Ursula von der Leyen tweeted,
Today Greece receives the first disbursement of funds under #NextGenerationEU
— Ursula von der Leyen (@vonderleyen) August 9, 2021
Designed in 🇬🇷, the Greek recovery and resilience plan will strengthen the country’s economic & social resilience.
The @EU_Commission will stand by Greece’s side, to make this recovery plan a success. pic.twitter.com/e8d5Czfczc
The European Commission tweeted,
Let’s #MakeItReal for Greece! 🇬🇷
— European Commission 🇪🇺 (@EU_Commission) August 9, 2021
We have disbursed €4 billion to Greece in pre-financing under #NextGenerationEU.
Investments are expected to have a deeply transformative effect on Greece’s economy and society. #NextGenEU
As far as digital transition is concerned, it will invest 23.7% of its total funds. It will provide 5G coverage to all Greek motorways that are part of the Trans-European Transport Networks with an investment of € 160 million. It will spend another €1.3 billion for digitalising archives, increasing interoperability of systems and using advanced technologies such as cloud computing and big data. It will also boost the adoption of digital technologies in particular by small and medium-sized enterprises and support the purchases of digital services and new technology cash registers by investing € 375 million.
It is also planning to provide digital education to approximately 600,000 school pupils and students in low-income families with vouchers for the purchase of tablets/laptops and installing 40,000 interactive learning systems in schools. Total cost for this would be € 231 million.
Greece also plans to support private investment by providing companies with access to finance through loans, equity support for SMEs and by reforms to ease the administrative burden and improve the regulatory framework. It would spend € 12.7 billion for doing this. It will spend € 740 million for supporting employment and social inclusion that would include redesigning and strengthening of active labour market policies to increase full-time employment, including for long-term unemployed and disadvantaged people. It will spend € 159 million to create more than 53,000 new early childcare places to facilitate participation of women in the labour market.
A comprehensive national health programme in tune of €254 million will be launched for expanding prevention services and setting up and rolling out of national screening. Public administration, including tax administration and judiciary will also be undertaken. Digitalising the justice system and accelerating legal court procedures, digitalising the public revenue administration and modernising and simplifying tax legislation is also a part of the plan. With a total investment of € 627 million.
