Brussels, 16 July 2024
The EU Council today approved the Commission’s positive assessment of Germany’s amended recovery and resilience plan. The amended plan now includes a new REPowerEU chapter worth €2.3 billion.
This will contribute to accelerating Germany’s transition towards clean energy by increasing the share of renewables in the German energy mix.
The modified plan has a strong focus on the green transition, allocating 49.5% of the available funds to measures that support climate objectives, up from 47% in the original plan. The digital ambition of the plan remains strong with 47.5% of its funds dedicated to digital measures.
The plan is now worth €30.3 billion in grants and covers 17 reforms and 28 investments.
Background
Germany submitted its original national recovery and resilience plan on 28 April 2021. The Council approved the Commission’s positive assessment of the plan by means of the Council implementing decision of 13 July 2021. The Council implementing decision was amended on 14 February 2023 and 8 December 2023.
On 30 April 2024, Germany submitted a modified national plan, including a REPowerEU chapter. The Commission submitted a positive assessment of the plan on 27 June 2024.
The RRF is the EU’s large-scale financial support programme in response to the challenges the COVID-19 pandemic has posed to the European economy. It is the centrepiece of NextGenerationEU, a temporary recovery instrument that allows the Commission to raise funds to help repair the immediate economic and social damage caused by the pandemic.
To benefit from the facility, member states must submit recovery and resilience plans (RRPs) to the Commission, setting out the reforms and investments they intend to implement by the end of 2026.
Regulation (EU) 2023/435 as regards REPowerEU chapters, in force since 1 March 2023, aims to end the EU’s dependence on Russian fossil fuels by saving energy, diversifying energy supplies and accelerating the clean energy transition.
Under the REpowerEU regulation, EU countries have added specific chapters to their national RRPs in order to finance key investments and reforms which will help achieve the REPowerEU objectives.
RepowerEU increases the RRF financial envelope by €20 billion in new grants. In addition, member states are able to voluntarily transfer up to €5.4 billion from the Brexit Adjustment Reserve to the RRF to finance REPowerEU measures. This comes on top of the existing transfer possibilities of 5% from the cohesion policy funds (up to €17.9 billion).
So far, €648 billion have been committed to this end. To date, all RRPs have been approved, 63 payment requests have been received and €240 billion have been disbursed.
- Council implementing decision approving the assessment of the recovery and resilience plan for Germany
- A recovery plan for Europe (background information)
- REPowerEU: energy policy in EU countries’ recovery and resilience plans (background information)
- The REPowerEU plan explained (infographic)