I am also glad to be back in this House for our 20th Recovery and Resilience Dialogue.
We are now less than a year away from the deadline for Member States to achieve the final results in their recovery and resilience plans.
Complementing the introduction by Raffaele, I will speak about the recent RRF implementation dialogue, the approach for the final revisions of the recovery and resilience plans, and, finally, transparency.
Let me start by informing you about the first Implementation Dialogue on the RRF, which I hosted on 27 June.
As you may know, Implementation Dialogues are a new consultation tool launched this spring by the Commission.
Commissioners meet with relevant stakeholders twice a year, seeking feedback on how to facilitate and simplify EU policies, rules, and spending programmes.
On 27 June, I discussed this with representatives from the Member States' national implementing bodies.
The objective was to learn more about the administrative and reporting burdens they experienced when implementing the RRF.
During this exchange, the participants identified several obstacles such as very detailed documentation requirements, insufficient guidance on phrasing the milestones and targets, very heavy audit burden, and insufficient flexibility to accommodate economic or political changes.
It was a very fruitful and timely discussion as the Commission is working with Member States to simplify their plans and reduce the administrative burden.
This comprises, for example, focusing the Council Implementing Decisions on key elements necessary to achieve policy objectives and removing non-essential requirements ahead of next year's deadlines.
I will hold a second Implementation Dialogue on the RRF in the autumn.
This Dialogue will focus on the experience of final recipients in applying to and accessing RRF funds.
It will involve business representatives, associations, and local or regional authorities to identify best practices that could be relevant towards future instruments.
I look forward to debriefing you on this conversation at our next meeting.
As Raffaele mentioned, the Commission presented on 4 June a Communication recalling the RRF deadlines.
We also provided an overview of the actions that Member States can take to ensure that their recovery and resilience plans are implemented in time and to the fullest extent possible.
Following this Communication, the informal Expert Group on the implementation of the RRF met for the 31st time on 7 July, to discuss ways to overcome remaining implementation challenges.
To recall, the final revisions of Recovery and Resilience Plans should occur before the end of the year.
For these "final" revisions, Member States should remove measures that cannot be implemented by 31 August 2026 and simplify the text of their plans.
The various options to ensure that the remaining RRF funds are used effectively were discussed, including those to finance emerging priorities.
Let me briefly recall the main options:
- scaling up measures where implementation is going well, including financial instruments that incentivise private investment;
- transferring funds to InvestEU, including for measures contributing to Strategic Technologies for Europe Platform;
- splitting RRF projects that can be continued with national or other EU funds;
- and supporting capital injections into National Promotional Banks.
The Expert Group also discussed two new options for Member States to strengthen investments and industrial readiness in security and defence.
First, Member States could make voluntary contributions to the future European Defence Industry Programme.
As you know, for this to be possible, a swift political agreement on EDIP must be found so as to allow both the Commission and Member States to discuss in more detail the specific activities to be funded and update the recovery and resilience plans accordingly.
Second, Member States can contribute to the existing EU satellite programmes, like Union Space Programme and Union Space Connectivity Programme.
Additionally, the Commission encouraged Member States to simplify the wording of their recovery and resilience plans, to reduce administrative burden and focus on essential elements only.
We provided concrete examples on how this streamlining can be implemented in practice.
Already during the summer, and more intensely in the coming months, the Commission and Member States will continue to work together to adopt revised and streamlined recovery and resilience plans by the end of this year.
Before I conclude, allow me to inform you about the latest developments regarding transparency, audit and control.
First, on 7 July the informal expert group discussed the data collection and reporting requirements under the RRF, as well as the competences of EPPO and OLAF.
The Commission recalled the essential role of Member States in combating fraud, corruption and conflict of interests, and underlined that it can carry out checks and audits for the implementation of the RRP until five years after the final payment is made.
Second, on final recipients, we continue to work closely with Member States to ensure that they share updated data on their 100 largest final recipients, in line with the RRF Regulation.
The next update will come next month.
In October, the Commission will publish the RRF Annual Report, which will include an updated overview and analysis of the largest final recipients.
The European Court of Auditors will also publish its Annual Report in October, which will include a chapter on RRF expenditure in 2024.
While we cannot pre-empt any findings ahead of the report's publication, I am pleased to note that the adversarial process was finalised in July in a constructive atmosphere.
In addition, six ECA performance audits on the RRF are ongoing, which will be published in 2025 and 2026.
We will be happy to discuss the ECA's Annual Report during our discharge hearing at the start of December.
And, in the autumn, we will also reply to all recommendations addressed to the Commission during the previous discharge cycle.
Honourable Members, to conclude.
Our joint objective is to ensure that the RRF, which has been such an important incentive for reforms and a source of public investment during crisis-years, continues to deliver benefits for EU citizens and businesses.
With less than one year left for implementation, the Commission is actively working with Member States to support implementation and to review and simplify the plans where possible.
We will continue to do that without compromising on ambition, democratic accountability and transparency, and by continuing the effective cooperation with the European Parliament.
I look forward to today's discussion.
