By Alexia Sotiriou

Greece remains among the first EU countries in implementing the Recovery Fund, as the European Commission is expected to give a positive assessment of Greece's sixth request for a €2.1 billion grant payment submitted in July, Alternate Minister of National Economy and Finance, Nikos Papathanassis, said.

The payment for this specific request will increase disbursements to Greece to 23.4 billion euros, i.e. 65% of the program and the fulfilled milestones to 178, i.e. 47% of the total number, with the average in the EU at 40%.

Specifically, the European Commission’s Report on the implementation of the Recovery and Resilience Mechanism confirms Greece’s steady progress in key implementation indicators compared with other EU member states.

In particular, the key implementation indicators of the “Greece 2.0” Plan are the following:

Payment Requests: Greece is in the top five countries in terms of payment requests, with six requests submitted.

Disbursements: Greece is in 8th place among the 27 in terms of disbursements of resources in relation to the allocated budget. It is noted that the report does not include the sixth payment request of €2.1 billion, for which the positive assessment of the European Commission is expected in the coming days. Its payment will lead to disbursements of €23.4 billion, i.e. 65% of the total budget.

Milestones met: The milestones that Greece has met, with the 6th payment request, reach 178, i.e. 47% of the total number, above the European average of 40%.

“Greece is in first places in terms of disbursements”

The EU Report confirms the official data that Alternate Minister of National Economy and Finance, Nikos Papathanassis, publishes on a regular basis: that Greece is in the first places in terms of RRF disbursements, that an acceleration of the pace is required especially when the implementation period has entered the final stretch, and that, like the other member states, it is proceeding with a revision of its Plan, in order to ensure that all the resources at its disposal will be utilized. Moreover, these are exactly what EU officials reiterated after a thorough examination of the Greek program a few days ago in Athens, expressing their optimism that the full utilization of the resources by Greece is possible.