Before filing its first request for the payment of Recovery and Resilience Facility grants, the Government was briefed on the report on the implementation of the Recovery and Resilience Plan.

The Minister of the Environment and Spatial Planning, Uroš Brežan, and the Minister of Labour, Family, Social Affairs and Equal Opportunities, Luka Mesec, participated in the ceremony to mark the opening of the new modern Pod Pekrsko gorco neighbourhood in Maribor. The aforementioned neighbourhood is one of 34 projects to be developed under the auspices of Housing Fund of the Republic of Slovenia, which is supported by the Recovery and Resilience Plan (RRP) and financed by the Council of Europe Development Bank (CEB).

As the coordinating body for implementation of the Slovenian Recovery and Resilience Plan, the Office for Recovery and Resilience organised a seminar on the subject of protecting the financial interests of Slovenia and the European Union. Those attending the seminar heard from representatives of the Commission for the Prevention of Corruption and the European Public Prosecutor’s Office.

As the coordinating body for implementation of the Slovenian Recovery and Resilience Plan, the Office for Recovery and Resilience organised a seminar at which experts presented the ‘do no significant harm’ principle. That principle was laid down in the European directive establishing the Recovery and Resilience Facility and states that no measure from national recovery and resilience plans may do significant harm to the environment.

In its National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NRRP), which was endorsed by the Council of the EU at the end of July 2021, the Republic of Slovenia specified EUR 705 million in loans for recovery and resilience-building measures in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic. For the purpose of implementing these investments, the European Union and the Republic of Slovenia concluded a loan agreement at the beginning of June 2022, setting out the terms and conditions for the implementation of these funds. The signed agreement is the basis for the disbursement of refundable funds from the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF).

Based on today's technical adjustment, Slovenia will receive approximately EUR 1.5 billion for the measures envisaged in the Recovery and Resilience Plan. This is EUR 286 million less non-repayable financial support than predicted by the previous Government, which is a new fact that Robert Golob's Government will need to address. The shortfall in non-repayable financial support will have to be promptly dealt with by changing the financial resources envisaged in the Recovery and Resilience Plan.

Following the Council of the EU’s decision on the assessment of the Slovenian Recovery and Resilience Plan in July 2021 and the signing of the Financing agreement for the implementation of the Recovery and Resilience Facility by the European Commission and the Republic of Slovenia, the European Commission has announced that it has also signed a document on the operational arrangements for the implementation of the Recovery and Resilience Facility in Slovenia.

The Government has issued the Decree on the implementation of the EU Regulation establishing the Recovery and Resilience Facility, which sets out in more detail the implementation and financing of the Facility in Slovenia.

Under the financing agreement for the implementation of the Recovery and Resilience Facility, Slovenia has today received an advance payment of 13% of the grants allocated under the Recovery and Resilience Plan, amounting to €231 million. The first funding under the RRP will be provided for the areas of sustainable mobility, digital transformation and healthcare.

Today, the Republic of Slovenia received notification that the European Commission has signed a financing agreement for the implementation of the Recovery and Resilience Facility. The signing of the agreement is the basis for the beginning of the implementation of the National Recovery and Resilience Plan, which was prepared and adopted by the Government of the Republic of Slovenia and endorsed by the European Commission. We can therefore expect the first funding from the Recovery and Resilience Facility by the end of the month.

The Ministry of Finance, Office of the Republic of Slovenia for Recovery and Resilience Slovenia’s Recovery and Resilience Plan was today given the green light in an informal videoconference of economy and finance ministers.