site.btaBulgaria’s Proportion of Funding Disbursed under EU Recovery and Resilience Facility Stands at 22%

In the first three years of implementation of the EU Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF), which has a budget of €724 billion, there have been various delays in the disbursement of funds and the implementation of projects, show data of a report of the European Court of Auditors (ECA) published on Monday.

Bulgaria’s proportion of funding disbursed under the RRF stands at 22% (EU average of 37%) with a 6% proportion of satisfactorily fulfilled milestones and targets (EU average of 19%).

The accumulated delays pose risks to the completion of the objectives to help EU countries recover from the COVID-19 pandemic and increase their resilience. Countries may not be able to absorb and use the funds on time and complete the planned measures before the RRF expires in August 2026, preventing them from reaping the expected economic and social benefits, ECA warns. By end-2023, EU countries had absorbed less than a third of the EU's planned recovery funds from COVID-19, the report said.

Assessing the progress of the RRF implementation in Bulgaria by end-2023, ECA observes an initial National Recovery and Resilience Plan, as well as an agreed operational arrangement, but no advance funding disbursed. Bulgaria has submitted two payment requests and has received one payment. Bulgaria has not submitted any loan requests, only grant requests. Seven EU Member States have not received payments under the RRF.

Bulgaria reports a 67% share of payment requests submitted by the end of 2023. In comparison, the share of payment requests is 100% in nine Member States and 0% in three.

The fundings allocated to Bulgaria in the 2021-2027 period amount to 9.3% of 2019 GDP (RRF) and 16.4% of 2019 GDP (cohesion), putting Bulgaria among EU leaders.