It's a pleasure to be back in this House for our 21st Recovery and Resilience Dialogue.
As Raffaele has already mentioned, work is progressing rapidly on the revision of recovery and resilience plans.
The timely completion of this streamlining exercise is of the essence.
We are now nine months away from the 31st of August 2026, the deadline by which Member States must have fulfilled all milestones and targets in their recovery and resilience plans.
The Commission will then be able to make payments until the end of 2026.
To that end, we are working closely with Member States to identify measures at risk of non-completion or that could be streamlined.
Measures that are no longer achievable by August 2026 may be removed from RRPs and be financed by other European programmes.
This is possible provided that the RRP continues to meet all assessment criteria and that there is no risk of double funding.
To simplify the RRPs further, the Commission and Member States are also reviewing the wording of measures and of milestones and targets, to ensure they focus on essential elements.
This means removing specifications that are too detailed, technical or descriptive, but not critical to the policy objective of the measure.
The goal is to reduce the workload and administrative burden so as to facilitate implementation, as well as the preparation and assessment of payment requests, in this final year of the Facility.
Let me however be very clear that all revised plans, even those that have been simplified, must continue to comply with all assessment criteria laid down in the RRF Regulation.
The plans must continue to meet the green and digital targets, and support Member States in addressing their specific needs and challenges in line with relevant country specific recommendations.
Another important aspect to recall is that the Commission continuously reviews national control systems.
With each revision, these systems are re-evaluated, which may lead to new audit and control milestones where relevant.
Those milestones would need to be fulfilled before any additional payments.
Turning onto a different point, I would like to inform you about the recent Implementation Dialogue on the RRF.
Implementation Dialogues are a new consultation tool launched as part of the Commission's implementation and simplification agenda.
Each Member of the College holds at least two such dialogues per year, with relevant stakeholders, seeking feedback on how to facilitate and simplify EU policies, rules, and spending programmes.
On the 31st of October, I held a discussion with stakeholders benefitting from RRF funds – including local governments, companies and NGOs.
The objective was to better understand their experience of accessing RRF funds and any obstacles they had encountered.
Many participants considered accessing RRF funds to be relatively straightforward.
They emphasised clear tendering procedures established by Member States, and the good and transparent communication about RRF investments – also thanks to the set-up of national IT portals.
Some also mentioned that performance-based funding helped them achieve better results, become more efficient and respond more effectively to the life-cycle of investment projects.
On the other hand, a number of representatives pointed to strict deadlines to complete some projects, and the limited involvement in the design of the RRPs, were mentioned as key shortcomings.
Other challenges concerned the extensive amount of data requested by Member States from beneficiaries, often going beyond the strict necessary to demonstrate fulfilment of milestones and targets, and late guidance by the Commission on certain elements.
The information gathered during this Dialogue provides important food for thought, including to inform the ex-post evaluation of the Facility, due in December 2028.
Honourable Members, allow me also to say a few words about the hearing of the discharge for the RRF that Raffaele and I attended on the 5th of November.
During this meeting, we discussed at length the topics of transparency, audit and control, as well as implementation and absorption.
I know these are particular concerns for this House, which would like to see higher transparency on contractors and sub-contractors.
Transparency is also a priority for the Commission and we have strived to deliver concrete improvements over the past years and months.
The recast Financial Regulation will mandate the publication of information on all recipients on an EU centralised website.
And this will apply to all programmes financed under the next MFF.
In the meantime, we have engaged extensively with Member States to enhance transparency, both bilaterally and in the RRF expert group.
This has led to some positive results.
Thanks to our scrutiny, reporting on the 100 largest final recipients has become more regular and qualitative.
24 Member States have by now updated their data on the 100 largest final recipients twice this year, and we expect the others to follow soon.
Some Member States are providing data on contractors and sub-contractors as requested by the CONT Committee this Spring.
In addition, whenever we spot issues on timeliness and plausibility, we request that the Member State concerned corrects them.
And we provide an annual overview and analysis of the largest final recipients, most recently in October in the 2025 RRF Annual Report.
Having said all this, we are looking into further possibilities to request and provide more data on the final recipients of RRF funds – as I also mentioned also during the discharge hearing.
During the discharge hearing, we also discussed the findings of the Court of Auditors in its Annual Report.
The Commission is already working on implementing the two recommendations made by the Court, namely on the implementation delays by Member States linked to important audit findings.
Moreover, the Commission is also working with the Court on seven ongoing performance audits, which will be published in 2026.
For instance, in October, the ECA published an audit on how the RRF supports an improved business environment.
The ECA is also finalising its audit on tackling fraud under the RRF, expected for early 2026.
To conclude, this is our last meeting this year.
We will meet again early next year.
Just a few months will then be left for Member States to finalise the implementation of the Facility.
We have achieved a lot already, but we must continue to press ahead.
The RRF has been a crucial driver for reforms and investments during challenging times.
In the months ahead, we will uphold its high level of ambition while assisting Member States in making the most out of the time that is left.
With this in mind, I look forward to our discussion.
