Malta submits official recovery and resilience plan

The EU has received an official recovery and resilience plan from Malta. The plan sets out the reforms and public investment projects that Malta plans to implement with the support of the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF).

The RRF is at the heart of Next Generation EU fund which will provide 800 billion euros to support investments and reforms across the EU. It is designed to play a “crucial role in helping Europe to emerge stronger from the crisis and secure the green and digital transitions,” the EU said on July 13.

The presentation of the plan follows intensive dialogue between the Commission and the Maltese authorities over the past number of months. Malta has requested a total of 316.4 million euros in grants under the RRF.

The Maltese plan covers six areas, including sustainable transport, circular economy, clean energy and energy-efficiency in buildings, digital transformation of the public administration and the legal system, projects targeting the health and education sectors, as well as institutional reforms. Projects in the plan cover the entire lifetime of the RRF until 2026. The plan proposes projects in five of the seven European flagship areas.

Next steps

The Commission will now assess Malta’s plan based on the eleven criteria set out in the Regulation and translate their contents into legally binding acts. This assessment will notably include a review of whether the plans contribute to effectively addressing all or a significant subset of challenges identified in the relevant country-specific recommendations issued in the context of the European Semester. The Commission will also assess whether the plan dedicates at least 37% of expenditure to investments and reforms that support climate objectives, and 20% to the digital transition.

The Council will have, as a rule, four weeks to adopt the Commission proposal for a Council Implementing Decision.

The EU Commission has received 25 recovery and resilience plans from Belgium, Czechia, Denmark, Germany, Estonia, Greece, Spain, France, Croatia, Italy, Ireland, Cyprus, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Hungary, Malta, Austria, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia, Slovakia, Finland, and Sweden.

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