May 28 (SeeNews) - Bulgaria will receive 15 billion euro ($16.5 billion) if the European Commission's proposed 750 billion euro recovery instrument - Next Generation EU, is adopted, data from the institution shows.
Bulgaria's contribution to the instrument will be 3.3 billion euro, leaving the country with a positive net effect of 11.7 billion euro, or 19.3% of GDP, according to a Commission staff working document released on Wednesday.
In this regard, Bulgaria is second only to Croatia, which could see a net income of 22.4% of GDP if the proposal is adopted as it is.
Next Generation EU will raise money by temporarily lifting the own resources ceiling to 2% of EU gross national income, allowing the Commission to use its strong credit rating to borrow 750 billion euro on the financial markets. The funds will be repaid over a long period of time throughout future EU budgets – not before 2028 and not after 2058.
The money raised for Next Generation EU will be invested across three pillars: support to member states with investments and reforms, kick-starting the EU economy by incentivising private investments, and addressing the lessons of the crisis.
The first pillar includes a new recovery and resilience facility of 560 billion euro, 55 billion euro top-up of the current cohesion policy programmes until 2022, a proposal to strenghten the Just Transition Fund up to 40 billion euro, and a 15 billion euro reinforcement for the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development.
The second pillar envisages the establishment of a new Solvency Support Instrument with a budget of 31 billion euro, the upgrade of InvestEU to a level of 15.3 billion euro, and a new Strategic Investment Facility built into InvestEU with a budged of 15 billion euro.
The third pillar provides for the establishment of a new health programme - EU4Health, a 2 billion euro reinforcement of rescEU, and an additional 94.4 billion euro for Horizon Europe. This pillar also envisages an additional 16.5 billion euro of support for Europe's global partners.
($ = 0.9086 euro)