Today, the Commission has endorsed a positive preliminary assessment of Sweden's first payment request for €1.6 billion under the Recovery and Resilience Facility , the centrepiece of NextGenerationEU.
Following its assessment of the payment request, submitted by Sweden on 20 December 2024, the Commission has preliminarily concluded that Sweden has satisfactorily completed the 27 milestones and targets set out in the Council Implementing Decision for the first instalment.
The payment request supports 14 reforms, and 13 investments designed to benefit both citizens and businesses in Sweden. The reforms focus on further decarbonising the transport sector through taxation, improving the housing market's efficiency, modernising employment protection and labour market integration, and strengthening efforts against money laundering and terrorist financing. The investments reduce carbon dioxide emissions at local and regional levels, upgrade railway infrastructure, expand broadband coverage, increase housing supply, create additional capacity in higher education, and enhance elderly care by upskilling and training relevant staff.
Flagship measures in this payment request include:
- Investment to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by an additional 540,000 tonnes annually: The "Climate Leap" initiative supports local and regional projects, including the installation of public electric vehicle charging stations.
- Broadband access extended to over 66,000 additional buildings: By delivering connections with speeds of at least 1 Gbit/sec, this measure helps close the digital divide between urban and rural areas.
Next steps
The Commission has now sent its preliminary assessment of Sweden'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 Sweden can take place following the EFC's opinion, and the adoption of a payment decision by the Commission.
Background
The Swedish recovery and resilience plan includes a wide range of investment and reform measures. The plan will be financed by €3.5 billion in grants.
You can find more information on Sweden's Recovery and Resilience plan on this page , which features an interactive map of projects financed by the RRF, as well as on the Recovery and Resilience Scoreboard
