June 2 (SeeNews) - The European Commission said on Thursday it received a request from Romania for 2.59 billion euro ($2.77 billion) in grants and loans under the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF).
The disbursement of the 1.8 billion euro in grants and 789.7 million euro in loans is conditional on the fulfillment of 21 milestones covering several reforms and investments in various fields, the EC said in a press release.
Romania needs to make progress in energy efficiency, sustainable mobility, digital transformation, water management, health care, taxation, pensions, education, justice, anti-graft fight, private sector support as well as in the audit and control system related to the recovery and resilience mechanism.
The Commission has two months to complete its evaluation, after which it will forward its preliminary assessment to the Council's Economic and Financial Committee.
Romania is expected to receive almost 30 billion euro of grants and loans from the RRF. The Romanian National Recovery and Resilience Plan was approved by the European Council in October.
It received a 1.9 billion euro tranche in January and another one, of 1.8 billion euro in December, both representing some 13% of the total.
In May, the European Investment Bank (EIB) said that together with the Romanian ministry for EU investment and Projects has created a 300 million euro Fund of Funds for on-lending under the country's RRF. The fund will be managed by the EIB and will provide direct and intermediated on-lending to Romanian schemes in line with the priorities of RRF.
($= 0.9357 euro)