Romania to get first payment of 2.6 bln euro from EC under RRF

The sum includes grants worth 1.8 billion euro and 800 million euro in loans, the European Commission said in a press release.

Romania submitted its payment request at the end of May, demonstrating the fulfilment of 21 reforms and investments in areas such as sustainable transport, improving tax and tax administration processes or the fight against corruption.

The country's recovery and resilience plan is worth 29.2 billion euro in grants and loans, of which 3.7 billion euro have already been disbursed to Romania in pre-financing.

"I have good news for Romania. Sufficient progress has been made under its national recovery and resilience plan, so it's ready to receive a first payment under NextGenerationEU," said President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen. "Once Member States give their greenlight, Romania will receive 2.6 billion euros as a result of its good and swift progress in implementing the plan's first set of reforms and investments."

The Commission's positive preliminary assessment of the request will now be sent to the Economic and Financial Committee (EFC), a European advisory body which will deliver its opinion in a maximum period of four weeks. Following EFC's opinion, a final decision will be taken by the Commission.

($=1.0006 euro)