Belgium on Thursday submitted a request to the European Commission to amend its recovery and resilience plan (RRP) and bring the total amount to €5.3 billion, the EU executive confirmed.
The revised RRP now includes a €264 million loan.
The original plan had been validated in 2021 at €5.9 billion in European subsidies, but these were reduced to €4.5 billion last year due to the strong post-Covid recovery by the country’s economy.
With the effects of inflation and supply chain disruptions over the past two years, the plan needed to be revised, especially since Belgium wanted to take advantage of the opportunity to include energy subsidies from the REPowerEU plan.
In the end, Belgium requested the transfer of part of its €229 million share of the Brexit adjustment reserve to its RRP. In addition, it applied for the first time for €264.2 million in Recovery and Resilience Facility loans.
Together with the allocation of grants under REPowerEU (€282 million), these funds bring the overall amount of the amended plan presented to €5.3 billion.
Several reforms and investments in this final chapter are aimed at speeding up the development of renewable energies, in particular by streamlining authorisation procedures and shortening the processing of appeals against authorisations.
Other measures encourage the energy renovation of buildings, support the installation of heat pumps and solar panels, and aim to decarbonise industry. Two investments that have been increased compared to the initial plan concern sustainable mobility.
An agreement reached ten days ago on pensions should also enable Belgium to submit a request for payment of a first tranche of €850 million at the start of Autumn.
