EU approved 4th recovery payment to Slovakia

The EU has approved the fourth piece of Slovakia’s recovery plan in a preliminary decision in which it also gave the green light to an outdated cost cap calculation that does not take inflation into account, Euractiv reports.

After more than six months, the EU Commission on Monday evening approved the fourth payment of 923 million euros as part of Slovakia’s recovery plan. Slovakia should receive 798 million euros after deducting pre-financing, with the money due by the end of the summer, after 15 steps have been completed.

Peter Kmec (Hlas/NI), Slovakia’s deputy prime minister in charge of the Recovery and Resilience Plan, says the delay in the assessment was “mainly due to new government priorities, which, for example, are related to the payment of the 13th instalment.” He also added:

We have managed to convince the EU Commission that the introduced compensatory measures sufficiently guarantee the sustainability of the pension system in the future.

However, with this decision, the European Commission has also given the green light to an outdated calculation of the 2024 spending ceiling. The 5.7 per cent year-on-year increase in net spending does not limit the government’s plans in any way.

Contradictions in the legislation

The European Commission’s assessment of this payment request also raised a number of concerns about the rule of law in Slovakia. It warned that recent changes adopted by the Slovak government, in particular the reform of the Criminal Code, could jeopardise corruption investigations, including those related to Recovery Plan funds.

The preliminary approval suggests that the European Commission has decided not to utilise one of its rule of law mechanisms for the time being.

The leading opposition party, Progressive Slovakia (PS/Renew), said the fourth instalment was presented to the current government on a “golden platter”. PS MP Beáta Jurík recalled that “the Slovak government continues to pass laws contrary to European law”, citing the controversial RTVS reform as an example. She said:

Just because the fourth payment was unblocked, that doesn’t mean everything is fine. We are still at risk of the Commission activating the conditionality mechanism or launching an infringement on the grounds of a breach of EU law.

The fourth request still needs approval from the EU’s Economic and Financial Committee, which has four weeks to issue its opinion.