Approval of new RRF tranche

The European Commission is on Friday expected to announce the approval of the second installment from the Recovery and Resilience Fund to Greece, amounting to 3.56 million euros, following the request submitted by the government at the end of September.

The tranche consists of €1.7 billion in grants and €1.8 billion in loans. In fact, the original plan did not provide for the disbursement of loans in this tranche, but as Greece has fulfilled the relevant milestones earlier than the planned schedule, the €1.8 billion in loans was also approved. The milestones for the loans concerned the activation of InvestEU, the activation of the Equity investment funds program and the securitization of loans of at least €586 million.

It is estimated that Greece will be the third country, after Spain and Italy, whose second tranche of the Recovery Fund is approved. Greece has already collected €4 billion as an advance payment in 2021 and €3.5 billion as a first installment last April.

The approval was practically announced on Thursday by European Commission Vice President Margaritis Schinas, during his meeting with Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, saying that the second installment is coming and that Greece is in the Champions League of the Recovery Fund.

Meanwhile, a new contract was signed on Thursday between the government and the European Investment Bank, which will manage through the European Investment Fund (EIF) additional resources of €400 million to implement investments that will help small and medium-sized enterprises.

The new support is being provided in the context of InvestEU with the aim of helping Greek SMEs gain preferential access to financing, while offering incentives for investments in climate change and digital transition projects, as announced by the EIB.

According to Alternate Finance Minister Thodoros Skylakakis, this particular agreement can yield €1.5 billion for local SMEs through the utilization of the relevant guarantee tools.