Cyprus is working on revised Recovery and Resilience Plan

The Finance Ministry’s Directorate General for Growth is collaborating with all stakeholders to prepare Cyprus’ revised Recovery and Resilience Plan, Anthoula Savvides, Director of Recovery and Resilience at DG Growth, told the Cyprus News Agency over the weekend.

She said the aim was to include the RepowerEU chapter and to incorporate revisions in some of the plan’s milestones and targets to streamline disbursements.

Savvides said the DG was carrying out informal consultations with the European Commission, in a bid to wrap up the draft revised text in June. Once greenlit by the Cabinet, the plan will be submitted to the European Commission for approval.

The revised plan will incorporate additional investments of €104m (€52m from the RepowerEU plan and an additional €52m from the Brexit Reserve Fund). Cyprus “lost” €90m in grants from the EU Recovery and Resilience Fund due to higher GDP growth but gained an additional €104m.

Savvides said the €104m will be solely invested in energy projects.

Moreover, she said that the revision of the Cypriot Plan provides the opportunity to DG Growth to change the timeframe of some targets and milestones in a bid to ensure full absorption of EU funds.

“We are having objective difficulties which are driven by factors beyond the control of the coordinating authority, the (Finance) Ministry and the government in general,” Savvides added.

So far Cyprus has received the first disbursement of €85m in early December last year and €156m in pre-financing. The Cypriot plan provides for nine additional disbursements which should be carried out by the end of 2026.

DG growth is working on the milestones of the second disbursement, with Savvides noting that the pending issues concern a procurement for mass installation of electricity smart meters, the provision of a fire-fighting air plane, vehicles and equipment to combat climate change and forest fires, while the milestone of the approval of the revised law to streamline strategic investments is pending in the parliament for discussion.

“The second and third disbursements will be submitted following the approval of the revised plan as the various problematic issues will be revised or moved,” Savvides said.

Cyprus’ Recovery plan features investments worth €1.2b and 271 milestones.