The European Commission gave a positive assessment of Croatia’s modified recovery and resilience plan (RRP), which includes a REPowerEU chapter worth 10 billion euros, up from the initial 6.4 billion euros.
The plan includes 5.8 billion euros in Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF) grants and 4.2 billion euros in RRF loans and covers 84 reforms and 253 investments, EC said in a press release.
To finance its increased ambition, Croatia has requested to transfer its share of the Brexit Adjustment Reserve amounting to 7.2 million euros. These funds come on top of Croatia’s RRF and REPowerEU grants allocation amounting to 5.5 billion euros and 269 million euros respectively, and its RRF loan request of 4.2 billion euro.
The REPowerEU plan aims to make Europe independent of Russian fossil fuels well before 2030.
Croatia’s proposed REPowerEU chapter, worth 2.9 billion euros, includes one new reform, three scaled-up reforms, as well as five new and three scaled-up investments drawing on existing measures. These measures focus on promoting energy efficiency in buildings and include reducing the dependency on fossil fuels by increasing the production and uptake of renewables such as sustainable biomethane, renewable hydrogen and geothermal energy, accelerating the deployment of renewable energy, addressing energy poverty and bottlenecks in electricity distribution, requalifying the workforce towards green skills and improving the security of energy supply.
The five new investments will increase the transmission and distribution capacities of the electricity network, establish a hydrogen-based economy through the North Adriatic Hydrogen Valley, strengthen the use of renewable energy sources in transport and heating, expand the capacity of the LNG terminal on the island of Krk and strengthen the gas transmission network towards Slovenia and Hungary. The scaled-up investments aim to support sustainable transport, energy efficiency and post-earthquake reconstruction of buildings.
The modified recovery and resilience plan also includes new and scaled-up reforms and investments in the areas of business environment, water management, education, digital transition and building reconstruction.
The Council will now have four weeks to endorse the Commission’s assessment. The Council’s endorsement will allow Croatia to receive 585 million euros in pre-financing of the REPowerEU funds.
Under the RRF, Croatia has received 2.2 billion euros, including 818 million euros in pre-financing and 1.4 billion euros disbursed in total for the first two payments.
