Today, the Commission has endorsed a positive preliminary assessment of Czechia's second payment request for €702 million under the Recovery and Resilience Facility, the centrepiece of NextGenerationEU.
Following its assessment of the payment request, submitted on 6 December 2023, the Commission has preliminarily concluded that Czechia has satisfactorily completed the 28 milestones and targets set out in the Council Implementing Decision for the second and third instalments.
This payment request covers important steps in the delivery of four reforms and 24 investments that will drive positive change for both citizens and businesses in Czechia impacting key areas such as clean mobility, healthcare, forestry, water management, research and digitalisation.
Flagship measures in this payment request include:
- High-capacity internet networks built more quickly and at lower cost: Czechia adopted a law enhancing coordination amongst internet and utility companies, through the creation of a database. Internet companies will be able to install high-capacity networks by identifying sites of ongoing or planned construction by utility companies. This will make the building of internet networks in Czechia cheaper, faster, and more efficient. This investment will help Czechia address its internet connectivity issues, identified in the 2023 Digital Decade Country Report, showing that only 53% of households are connected to Fixed Very High-Capacity Networks, compared to an EU average of 73%.
- Forest restoration and water-retention investments: In recent years, Czechia has been hit by two environmental crises. Firstly, as a result of bark-beetles, more trees were felled in 2020 than from 1990 to 2016 combined. Secondly, Czechia suffered extensive droughts that led to a devastating forest fire in the Bohemian Switzerland National Park in 2022. These fires spread towards the Pravčická brána rock formation, one of the most striking sandstone monuments in Europe. To help prevent such crises in the future, the Czech plan will fund the reforestation of more than 12,000 hectares and the construction of 40 forest reservoirs for water retention. These measures support the EU's Adaptation strategy and Forest strategy.
Next steps
The Commission has now sent its preliminary assessment of Czechia's fulfilment of the milestones and targets required for this payment to the Economic and Financial Committee (EFC), which has four weeks to deliver its opinion. The payment to Czechia can take place following the EFC's opinion, and the adoption of a payment decision by the Commission.
Background
The Czech recovery and resilience plan includes a wide range of investment and reform measures. The plan will be financed by €8.4 billion in grants and €818 million in loans. The payment request preliminarily endorsed today follows Czechia's first payment request, which was endorsed by the Commission on 8 February 2023 and paid out to Czechia on 22 March 2023.
