Today, the European Commission endorsed a positive preliminary assessment of Austria's second payment request for € 1.622 billion under the Recovery and Resilience Facility , the centrepiece of NextGenerationEU.
The Commission has preliminarily concluded that Austria has completed the 67 milestones and targets set out in the Council Implementing Decision for the second and third instalments.
The payment request covers important steps in the delivery of 54 reforms and 13 investments benefiting Austrian citizens and businesses. Key focus areas include digitalisation in public administration, health, energy, circular economy and biodiversity, sustainable mobility, pensions, skills, culture, support to growth-oriented start-ups, and carbon taxation.
Flagship measures linked to this payment request include the acceleration of the decarbonisation of buildings, including with a ban on fossil-fuel heating systems in new buildings from 2025, as well as the replacement of more than 30,000 fossil-fuel heating systems in existing buildings. Other measures include a pension reform aiming at improving the sustainability of the pension system and investments in longer term care.
Next steps
The Commission has now sent its preliminary assessment of Austria's fulfilment of the milestones and targets for this payment to the Economic and Financial Committee (EFC), which has four weeks to deliver its opinion. The payment to Austria can take place following the EFC's opinion and the adoption of a payment decision by the Commission.
Background
The Austrian recovery and resilience plan includes a wide range of investment and reform measures. The plan will be financed by €3.961 billion in grants.
You can find more information on Austria's Recovery and Resilience plan on this page , which features an interactive map of projects financed by the RRF. Additional details are available on the Recovery and Resilience Scoreboard.
