The ND government is trying to hide the “low flights” regarding the Recovery Fund under the carpet. If this condition continues in the next period, then there will be consequences for the Greek economy as well, something that has been pointed out by a number of domestic and foreign economic analysts as well as institutions, such as IOBE and the Bank of Greece.
As shown by the budget figures made public yesterday, which show that revenues from the Recovery Fund have reached 159 million euros in the 7th month, while the target was 1.797 billion euros (distance 1.638 billion euros). At the same time, expenditure on the Recovery Fund reached 876 million eurosaccording to the budget data, while the target was set at 3.617 billion euros, which means that the execution reaches 24.7%.
It is typical that the government decided a few days ago to set up within the Special Coordination Service of the Recovery Fund, a new expert committee (task force) that will meet on a weekly basis and will monitor the progress of the 750 integrated projects and sub-projects in order to identify malfunctions in achieving milestones and solving them. This move alone shows that something is not going so well, while the government will have to fulfill a series of prerequisites for the next installments, which seems to be very difficult.
In any case, if this situation continues for the foreseeable future, it is not excluded that Greece will have to absorb an amount of more than 2.5 billion euros during the last four months of 2024. It is beyond clear that if this is not achieved , then there will be effects on the Greek economy, while in case this logic is followed in 2025, then it is not excluded that our country requests an extension to the “life” of the Recovery Fund beyond 2026.
The next step and the fronts
In the crucial chapter of the Recovery Fund there are two fronts that should be closed. The first is for Greece to collect the 1 billion euros of the grants of the 4th tranche. The second is that the disbursement request for the fifth tranche of 3.6 billion euros (2.3 billion from loans and 1.3 billion from grants) should be submitted. Before that, of course, he’ll have to complete the next installment’s 29 milestones in time.
The next big step for the Ministry of National Economy and Finance is the timely submission of the request for the fifth tranche which is planned to be submitted to Brussels within October. In order to do this, our country must have met two objectives of the program regarding the Recovery Fund. The first has to do with the digitization of the State records by at least 30% and the second with the completion of the public posting of 85% of the property rights in the Land Registry.
From here on, for the fifth installment, 29 milestones should be completed, which include from contract assignments to specific actions for the further digitization of public administration and justice, which is encountering difficulties in implementation.
However, according to a recent study by the European Commission, Greece has a disbursement rate of contracted loans at 35% with a total loan budget of 12 billion euros, of which 5.17 billion euros are covered by the Fund. As the Deputy Minister of National Economy and Finance Nikos Papathanasis explained some time ago, Greece will request 1.3 billion grants and 2.3 billion loans, noting that after the payment of the fifth request, the total disbursements of our country from the Recovery Fund will immediately amount to 18.2 billion euros. But the issue is also what is done in relation to absorption.
The example of Civil Protection
For example, the actual absorption of the funds of the Recovery Fund for Civil Protection and the Climate Crisis, reach only 1%. These include spending on fire prevention and suppression, where the actual absorption of resources, especially for aerial firefighting, is close to zero, according to data presented by the Observatory of the ENA Institute on June 20.
While the budget for 24 projects related to Civil Protection and fire prevention exceeds half a billion Euros (556.63 million), the actual expenditure, i.e. payments to contractors to complete the projects, is only 5.34 million . euros.
The data was last updated on 3/31. However, a look at the tables of Greece 2.0 shows that the situation remains the same, since in key projects the projected credits for 2024 are zero.
Source: ot.gr
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