As Slovenia's gross domestic product (GDP) increased in 2021, which is also due to an outstanding growth in government spending and accelerated borrowing, Slovenia will be entitled to EUR 286 million less non-repayable funds than was initially envisaged, which was EUR 1.8 billion.

The European Commission provisionally set the amount of non-repayable financial support that each Member State can receive under the Recovery and Resilience Facility at the beginning of 2021, based on the autumn 2020 economic forecast. The Regulation establishing the Recovery and Resilience Facility adopted on 12 February 2021 clearly states that by 30 June 2022, the European Commission will update the outturn calculations for each Member State based on Eurostat data on GDPs in 2020 and 2021.

Slovenia has started an informal dialogue with the European Commission regarding the submission of a request for the payment of the first instalment of non-repayable funds in the amount of EUR 57 million. The condition for the payment of the funds is the achievement of 13 pre-set milestones. Slovenia has already sent to the Commission a list of achieved milestones, together with the supporting documents and the latest information on the open milestones.

The Government will officially sent the request to Brussels when all milestones are achieved and all the documents supporting the request are agreed on with the Commission.

The Government is daily facing the existing unresolved issues that have a substantial impact on the ability to draw funds under the Recovery and Resilience Facility, and is solving them as a priority. A key issue to be resolved in order to achieve the milestones that must be achieved before the request for the second instalment of non-repayable financial support can be submitted will be long-term care. According to the assessment of all key stakeholders, the Act adopted last year is not implementable. It is particularly problematic that the previous Government tied this milestone to the use of non-repayable funds in this year.