Recovery Fund: 3.6 billion euros coming for “Greece 2.0” projects

Greece, according to the European Commission, is firmly in first gear – it is not alone, but is a permanent member of a group of countries that excels in the field of performance of the Recovery and Resilience Facility. The group, outside our country, includes on a regular basis France, Spain, Italy and gives the measure and the tone for developments.

Performance

The answer to where we are, in the field of the performance of the Recovery Fund, comes from a post of the Deputy Minister of Finance, Theodoros Skylakakis, on social media (the post is accompanied by an image depicting the performance of the member states of the European Union). We are entering the final stage for the disbursement of the first tranche of “Greece 2.0”, amounting to 3.6 billion euros, in April. “We were second in submitting our plan , we were among the first to receive approval, among the first to submit a request, which is proceeding successfully. We continue our work, reduce bureaucracy and accelerate the pace of implementation of the Greek program, in terms of transparency.”

Based on the data, the National Plan for Recovery and Sustainability “Greece 2.0” is in full swing, with the inclusion of projects constantly increasing. It is recalled that 48 projects, amounting to 2.76 billion euros, have already been included and announced in two time phases. The first 12 projects (1.42 billion euros) in July 2021 and the remaining 36 projects (1.34 billion euros) in October 2021.

With the third package (January 2022) the total budget of the 103 projects that will be implemented through the Recovery Fund exceeds 6 billion euros. At the same time, the Project Maturation Unit is “running”, which operates as an autonomous business unit within the HRDH, utilizing the know-how and the experienced potential of the Fund.

Contracts

Recently, the contracts of the Ministry of Justice for the relocation of the Court of First Instance and the Athens Prosecutor’s Office were signed, as well as those of the Ministry of Development & Investment for the New Industrial Parks. Following are others, among which is the work of fire prevention for Forests, with a budget of 50 million euros, which will “run” under the responsibility of Deputy Minister of Environment Giorgos Amyras in the spring.

At the same time, reforms are underway on the one hand, such as the one for the improvement of the Greek Justice infrastructure, accompanied by projects and investments of over 250 million euros – investments in people and training, infrastructure and buildings, as well as in information systems, on the other hand. Investments are underway, such as the installation of at least 36,000 interactive learning systems (including whiteboards, laptops, interactive projectors) for primary and secondary school classrooms. The investment has a budget of 148 million euros.