One reform every two days

The government will need to act at a rate of one new reform every two days if it is to fulfill the prior actions required for the tranches of the Recovery and Resilience Fund and the commitments it has made in the context of the Enhanced Surveillance of the economy, in order to collect a total of some 6 billion euros.

As Eurobank points out in its weekly financial bulletin, for Greece to claim the two installments from the Next Generation EU resources provided for this year, adding up to €5.3 billion, the government will need to reach as many as 65 milestones.

Consequently the collection of the funds will not exactly be a walk in the park: The country may have fulfilled 15 milestones to collect the first RRF tranche last month, amounting to €3.6 billion, but the next steps will be harder and commitments will become more pressing over the second half of the year, the Eurobank analysis shows.

For the second installment, which amounts to €1.72 billion (concerning grants only), Greece will need to reach 25 milestones by the end of the second quarter – i.e. in just five weeks’ time. The Eurobank analysts point out that some of those reforms have already started being implemented or look set to be completed by the deadline. They include the simplification of the licensing process for renewable energy sources, the digital transformation of small and medium-sized enterprises through a voucher system, the strategic plan for professional education, training and lifelong learning, the determination of standards for the interconnection of online tills and card terminals (PoS) with the Independent Authority for Public Revenue, the provision of tax and financial incentives for the creation of economies of scale through cooperations and the corporate transformation of SMEs, the economic transformation of the agricultural sector and the creation of new industrial parks.

The third tranche, of €3.6 billion, will concern loans and grants and requires another 40 milestones by end-2022.