ZAGREB (Croatia), July 8 (SeeNews) – The European Commission approved on Thursday a grant of 6.3 billion euro ($7.5 billion) for Croatia's Covid recovery plan under the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF), local media reported.
“The European Commission gave a green light for Croatia's national recovery and resilience plan worth 6.3 billion euro which could boost the gross domestic product by 2.9% and create 21,000 new jobs by 2026,” national TV broadcaster Nova TV reported citing state news agency Hina.
An assessment of the plan was delivered by the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, to Croatian prime minister Andrej Plenkovic on Thursday in Zagreb.
Croatia's recovery and resilience plan seeks to help expand the national economy by 1.5% in 2021, an additional 2.5% in each of the next four years, and by 2.9% in 2026, according to estimates by the EC.
Croatia will use some 40.3% of the grant for climate goals and 20.4% for digital transformation. Some 3.4 billion euro are aimed at supporting the economy, around one billion euro will be allocated to education, science and research, 340 million euro to healthcare, 280 million euro to the labour market and 789 million euro to reconstruction of buildings following recent heavy earthquakes and improvement of the energy efficiency of buildings.
The grant should be approved by the European Council within a month.
The overall value of the plan equals 11.6% of Croatia's GDP for 2019.
($ = 0.8431 euro)