Brussels, 21 February 2024
Today, the Commission has endorsed a positive preliminary assessment of Lithuania’s second payment request for €360 million in loans under the Recovery and Resilience Facility, the centrepiece of NextGenerationEU.
Following its assessment of the payment request, submitted on 18 December 2023, the Commission has preliminarily concluded that Lithuania has satisfactorily completed the five milestones set out in the Council Implementing Decision for the first loan instalment.
This payment request covers important steps in the delivery of four reforms that will drive positive change for both citizens and industry in Lithuania impacting key areas such as social care, the green transition, public procurement, and the modernisation of industry.
Flagship measures in this payment request include:
- Approval of the Green Finance Action Plan: To accelerate the green transition, Lithuania approved a Green Finance Action Plan for the 2023-2026 period. This plan covers actions to promote green finance both in the public and private sector, and to increase Lithuania’s attractiveness for investors in green financial products. Through the implementation of legislative and educational measures Lithuania aims to become a regional leader in the field of green finance.
- Upskilling the social services workforce: Lithuania established a centre for developing professional competences of social service employees. This centre organises regular trainings, provides specialised vocational assistance and offers professional support to new social services workers in their daily work. This centre will improve the opportunities for this sector’s workforce to gain better access to training opportunities and to facilitate the sharing of best practices. This reform will improve the overall quality of social and employment services and its 15,000-strong workforce, in line with the European Care Strategy.
Next steps
The Commission has now sent its preliminary assessment of Lithuania’s fulfilment of the milestones required for this payment to the Economic and Financial Committee (EFC), which has four weeks to deliver its opinion. The payment to Lithuania can take place following the EFC’s opinion, and the adoption of a payment decision by the Commission.
Background
The Lithuanian recovery and resilience plan includes a wide range of investment and reform measures (more information on the Lithuanian plan, including a map of projects financed by the Recovery and Resilience Facility in Lithuania are available here). The plan will be financed by €2.3 billion in grants and €1.55 billion in loans. The payment request preliminary endorsed today follows Lithuania’s first payment request that was endorsed by the Commission on 28 February 2023 and partially paid out to Lithuania on 10 May 2023.
This payment request will bring the funds disbursed to Lithuania under the Recovery and Resilience Facility to €981 million (including the €289 million in pre-financing Lithuania received in August 2021 and the €149.5 million in REPowerEU pre-financing it received in December 2023), which correspond to 35% of all the funds in the Lithuanian plan, with 17% of all the milestones and targets in the plan fulfilled.
For more information
Commission’s preliminary assessment of Lithuania’s second payment request
Lithuania’s Recovery and Resilience plan
Plan overview, full plan and all other related documents
Recovery and Resilience Facility
Recovery and Resilience Facility project map
Recovery and Resilience Scoreboard