April 22nd, the European Commission said in a statement that Portugal had become the first member state to formally submit an economic recovery plan to it. At current prices, Portugal is expected to receive 13.9 billion euros from the European Union’s recovery fund and 2.7 billion euros in loans to help the recovery.
Next, it will take the European Commission two months to review the plan, and then one month to submit it to the European Council for approval. As a result, the Commission has been urging other member States to submit their country plans on time by 30 April in an effort to release the first recovery funds this summer.
On the 14th of this month, the European Commission officially announced the financing arrangements for the Economic Recovery Fund, which aims to raise up to 800 billion euros from international capital markets between 2021 and 2026.
The European Commission’s financing is premised on guaranteeing the EU’s long-term budget for 2021-2027 and increasing revenues from “own resources” in the budget, which would require 27 EU member states to complete their own domestic ratification processes.
So far, 10 member states have not ratified it. Among them, Germany is more likely to wait until after September’s Bundestag elections to complete the process, which risks delaying the implementation of the EU’s economic recovery plan as a whole.
