MNI BRIEF: EC Urges EU States To Accelerate RRF Spending

The European Commission on Wednesday urged states to streamline their remaining investment projects to meet the August 2026 deadline for using Recovery and Resilience Facility Funds, and ruled out an extension, which would require unanimous support of the EU-27 states and national parliamentary ratifications.

Only investments which are achievable by the deadline should be continued and states should also think about alternative options such as scaling up existing projects, capital injections into national promotional banks or EU funds like InvestEU and EDIP - the defence industry investment fund.

Absorption of the EUR700 billion of grants and loans of the post-pandemic recovery programme has been a recognised problem for some time, with only EUR315bn disbursed so far.  (See MNI: Italy Looks At Special Vehicle To Spend NGEU Cash-Sources)