In July, Austria and Slovenia submitted two requests to the Commission to modify their Recovery and Resilience Plans, to which they also want to add chapters on REPowerEU.
Slovenia’s proposed plan modification includes two reforms and four investments to deliver on the REPowerEU objectives. The reforms aim to facilitate the deployment of renewable energy, shortening permitting procedures and promoting sustainable mobility. The investments aim at accelerating the decarbonisation of Slovenia’s industry, strengthening its national energy distribution network, and giving a boost to sustainable mobility, in both the public and private sector. Slovenia is also proposing to remove some investments from its plan, such as the originally foreseen flood protection measures. More time is needed to ensure they align with environmental standards. Therefore, Slovenia will be financing them with national funds while implementing them according to a different timeline.
Slovenia’s request to modify its plan is based on the need to factor in the very high inflation experienced in 2022, as well as the impossibility to deliver certain measures within the originally envisaged timeline due to objective circumstances. The request also reflects the downward revision of Slovenia’s maximum RRF grant allocation, from €1.8 billion to €1.5 billion. The revision is part of the June 2022 update to the RRF grants allocation key and reflects the country’s comparatively better economic outcome in 2020 and 2021 than initially foreseen.
Slovenia has also requested to reduce the amount of loans financing its plan, from €0.7 billion to €0.55 billion, to reflect the removal of certain investments originally included in the plan. In addition, Slovenia has requested to transfer the totality of its share of the Brexit Adjustment Reserve (BAR), amounting to €5 million, to its recovery and resilience plan. These funds, added to Slovenia’s REPowerEU grants allocation (€116 million) make the submitted overall modified plan worth €2.16 billion.
Source: European Commission
