The Recovery and Resilience Plan is a national programme of measures (reforms and investments) to mitigate the economic and social impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in Slovenia. It serves as the foundation for accessing the Recovery and Resilience Facility, which is financially the largest part of Europe’s NextGenerationEU recovery and resilience package. According to calculations published by the European Commission last June, Slovenia will be able to benefit from EUR 1.49 billion of grants before the end of 2026, instead of the EUR 1.78 billion foreseen when the plan was approved in July 2021. European repayable funds are also available. The current version of the plan includes 86 investments and reforms. There are 209 milestones and objectives linked to their implementation, which are a condition for the payment of these European funds.

Today, the Government approved an outline list of adjustment and withdrawal measures amounting to EUR 286 million, which is the lower amount of available funding. In identifying the measures, the Government has mainly followed the criteria of whether the investment contributes to green and digital objectives, whether it is a time-sensitive investment, and whether it takes other risks into account related to ensuring the conditions the country agreed with the European Commission when the plan was approved.

The second major change addressed by the adjustment is the European plan to reduce its dependence on Russian energy, called REPowerEU. Earlier this month, a European regulation came into force that foresees the inclusion of REPowerEU objectives in national recovery and resilience plans, and which will take the form of a separate section. For these purposes, Slovenia can count on EUR 117 million from the emissions trading system market stability reserve and EUR 5 million from the European fund to help member states cope with the negative consequences of Brexit.

In preparing the content of the new section of REPowerEU, the Government is following the principle of complementarity with the existing measures in the plan, namely in the areas of energy efficiency, renewable energies and sustainable mobility. It pays particular attention to the feasibility of the measures up to the end of the programming period. In addition to investments, the Government must also propose associated reforms as a condition for benefiting from the recovery and resilience funds.

By adjusting the plan, the Government will not only address the new grant allocation and objectives of the REPowerEU plan, but also the objective circumstances (high inflation) affecting achievement of the milestones and objectives, and the technical and substantive inconsistencies between the plan and the implementing decision of the Council of the European Union that approved the Slovenian plan.

The adjustment of the plan may have an impact on the composition of the measures and the related milestones and objectives that make up the instalments for the payment of the funds available under the Brussels Recovery and Resilience Facility.

For those topics that will be removed from the plan and which the Government deems important for Slovenia’s recovery, the Government will seek funding from other sources (for example, the European cohesion policy for the 2021–2027 programming period).

Based on these premises, the Government will continue discussions with representatives of the European Commission and other stakeholders. This may have an impact on the final content of the proposed amendments, which will be forwarded by the Government to the European Commission for formal endorsement at the end of the consultation process.

The Government has instructed the Recovery and Resilience Office, a body within the Ministry of Finance, to prepare a proposal for adjusting the plan.