Slovenia receives €230 million in European recovery and resilience funding
"Once again, the European Commission has assessed that Slovenia has satisfactorily fulfilled all the milestones and targets linked to the request, including the entry into force of amendments to pension legislation and the adjustment of the legislative framework to strengthen the resilience of the healthcare system. Following today’s inflow, Slovenia now stands at almost 83 per cent utilisation of the available European recovery and resilience funding. This is an excellent result, and Slovenia remains among the most successful Member States. The condition for receiving the remaining funds will be the successful achievement of targets in the investment component of the Recovery and Resilience Plan," emphasised Minister Klemen Boštjančič.
Slovenia has satisfactorily met all 16 milestones and targets under the fifth payment request. The gross value of the request amounted to €266.84 million, while the net payment totalled €230.69 million. In its final calculation, the European Commission proportionately took into account the pre-financing of grants received by Slovenia under the Facility in previous years. To date, Slovenia has received a total of €1.77 billion, or 82.7 per cent of the available funds, of which €1.3 billion is in grants and €0.47 billion in loans. It has formally fulfilled 107 milestones and targets. A further 15 are currently under review by the European Commission as part of the sixth payment request, which has been in Brussels since the end of March. Slovenia will include the remaining milestones and targets in its final payment request.
The state has disbursed €1.44 billion to final recipients for completed project activities by the end of March. Of this, just under €137 million was disbursed this year.
"Funds received today will be channelled by ministries into ongoing investments. According to information provided by the ministries, of approximately 1,400 projects, more than 500 have been fully completed. Projects implemented by a wide range of stakeholders are delivering results that demonstrate the successful achievement of milestones and targets in investments," explained Josip Mihalic, Director of the Office of the Republic of Slovenia for Recovery and Resilience. "Slovenia must still report to the European Commission on the fulfilment of 59 milestones and targets, of which 47 relate to the final grant payment and 12 to the final loan payment," said the Director of the coordinating body, adding that a potential and, most likely, final amendment of the Plan is being prepared, which Member States may submit to Brussels by the end of May 2026 at the latest. The fifth amendment of the Plan is currently in the final stages of approval.
"The bulk of activities related to the remaining milestones and targets must be completed by 30 June 2026, with all other formalities to be finalised by 31 August 2026 at the latest. This is the official deadline set by the European Union. The final payment request can be submitted to the European Commission by 30 September 2026 at the latest. The disbursement is expected by 31 December 2026. Slovenia will receive the maximum payment if it satisfactorily fulfils all milestones and targets linked to the outstanding payments and if there are no changes to the milestones and targets for which funding has already been received under previous payment requests. For example, if the state repeals part of the legislation that constituted a condition for the disbursement of funds, the European Commission may proportionately reduce the final payment," commented State Secretary at the Ministry of Finance, responsible for fiscal policy, the budget and public accounting, Saša Jazbec, regarding the completion of the Recovery and Resilience Plan. She explained that the European Commission will continue to monitor the implementation of systemic reforms recommended to individual Member States and included in their Recovery and Resilience Plans within the framework of the European Semester. "The results-based disbursement approach, as applied under the Recovery and Resilience Facility, appears to be carried over into the next multiannual financial framework for 2028–2034. When preparing their strategic documents, which will form the basis for the disbursement of European funding, Member States will likely also need, in some form, to follow the recommendations of the European Semester, the central instrument for coordinating economic, fiscal and social policies at EU level. In my view, Member States will not be able to avoid the implementation of key structural reforms under any circumstances," she added.
