Greece getting additional €5 bln from Recovery Fund
Athens has claimed its share from unallocated EU funds that will be used for lending purposes
The way is now open to accept the Greek request for additional loans of 5 billion euros from the Recovery Fund, within the framework of REPowerEU, for Europe’s energy autonomy, thus increasing the fund’s loan budget by 40%.
The European Commission notified the member-states of the requests it has received for related loans and these amount to €148 billion, while there are still unallocated resources of about €80 billion. This means that the available resources are more than enough to cover all requests, even if some new ones are submitted in the coming months. Therefore, according to sources in Athens, Greece has a very good chance of getting the additional €5 billion in loans, given the good course of the fund’s loan program so far.
This €5 billion will be added to the €12.7 billion in loans already allocated to the country by the Recovery Fund, increasing the loan budget by 40%. In total, the available resources of the fund for Greece, together with the grants, amount to €31.2 billion, and with the €5 billion they will increase by 16%, if the request is accepted.
The REPowerEU loans come from unallocated Recovery Fund loans, as many countries were not interested due to the low cost at which they borrow from the markets.
In this new call for expressions of interest, within the framework of REPowerEU, 10 countries have responded positively. Spain asked for the largest amount, €84 billion, as it had not applied for any loans in the first phase, but apparently reconsidered now in light of rising borrowing costs. Also, Poland has claimed €23 billion, the Czech Republic €11 billion, Portugal €11.5 billion, Hungary €6.5 billion, Croatia €3.6 billion, Lithuania €1.8 billion and Belgium €1 billion. Italy has said it will apply for a new loan, but has not yet specified the amount.
It is noted that Greece and Italy are the only countries that had exhausted the ceiling of the Recovery Fund loans (6.8% of 2020 GDP) and now, if their requests are accepted, they will exceed it.
