The Commission adopted a positive assessment of Lithuania’s modified recovery and resilience plan, which includes a REPowerEU chapter. The plan is now worth €3.85 billion (€2.3bn in grants and €1.55bn in loans) which is nearly double the size of the initial recovery and resilience plan.
The REPowerEU chapter includes one reform and three investments to deliver on the REPowerEU Plan‘s objectives to make Europe independent of Russian fossil fuels well before 2030.
In addition to this, Lithuania has added further investments to its original plan, notably two funds that will provide loans for the clean energy transition. One of these funds will incentivise the uptake of renewable energy by businesses, while the other will boost the transition of businesses towards green and high value-added technologies. Lithuania has also scaled up measures which were already included in the original plan, such as strengthening the state’s cybersecurity capabilities.
For four out of 48 measures related to taxation included in Lithuania’s plan, the Commission has found that the reasons underpinning Lithuania’s request for an amendment to the plan do not justify it. The Commission is therefore following the procedure outlined in Article 21(3) of the RRF Regulation: it has shared its preliminary conclusions with Lithuania, which now has one month to present possible additional observations on the matter.
Lithuania’schanges to the original plan are based on the need to factor in increased costs due to high energy prices, supply chain disruptions and changed market demand, more efficient ways to implement certain measures and the downward revision of its maximum RRF grant allocation, from €2.2bn to €2.1bn, as a result of Lithuania’s comparatively better economic outcome in 2020 and 2021 than initially projected.
To finance its revised plan, Lithuania has requested to transfer to the plan its share of the Brexit Adjustment Reserve (BAR) amounting to €4.7 million. These funds, added to Lithuania’s RRF and REPowerEU grants allocation (amounting to €2.1bn and €194m, respectively) and to its RRF loan request of €1.55bn, will make the modified plan worth €3.85bn.
The Council will now have, as a rule, four weeks to endorse the Commission’s assessment.
More information is available in this press release.
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