The Diplomat
The EU Council approved this Tuesday the European Commission’s positive assessment of the modification of the recovery and resilience plans submitted by the Netherlands, Portugal, Slovakia, and Spain.
On March 21, 2025, Spain requested the modification of its recovery and resilience plan. Since then, the Executive has been awaiting the Council’s decision to release the fifth payment of the plan’s funds.
The modification covers 12 measures. These include reducing the administrative burden and eliminating unnecessary procedures. For one of the objectives, Spain requested an extension until the fourth quarter of this year due to the floods of October 2024, which made it unattainable. The amount of the plan remains unchanged at €163 billion in grants and loans.
The amended measures affect water and wastewater treatment infrastructure, the interconnection of national procurement platforms, actions for entrepreneurs and SMEs supported by the Industrial Entrepreneurship Support Programme, R&D projects linked to the green and digital transitions, and fellowships and grants for postdoctoral students, teaching assistants, and researchers.
The Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF) is the EU’s large-scale financial support program in response to the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic to the European economy. It is the backbone of NextGenerationEU, a temporary recovery instrument that allows the Commission to raise funds to help repair the immediate economic and social damage caused by the pandemic.
To benefit from this mechanism, Member States must submit Recovery and Resilience Plans (RRPs) to the Commission, setting out the reforms and investments they intend to implement by the end of August 2026.
