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BRUSSELS (ANP) – The EU countries are only now starting to apply for European subsidies on a large scale from the so-called corona recovery fund. This has been possible since 2021. Time is pressing, as this fund will cease to exist in 2026 and makes a total of 650 billion euros available in subsidies and loans.
The trend of increased applications is evident from the evaluation report of the corona recovery fund of 2024, which the European Commission presented on Thursday.
Each EU country can only submit a limited number of requests per year. The Netherlands was among the late submitters but will receive a first payment this year.
To fund the pool, the European Commission has borrowed money and has so far issued 60.2 billion in bonds, the European Commission announced on Thursday. The commission can borrow money under more favorable conditions than some individual member states, due to the joint credibility of the European economy.
But it was precisely the rising European debts as a result of those loans that the European Court of Auditors expressed concern about on Wednesday. In a report released Wednesday on the European expenditures of 2023, it was stated that there is no detailed plan yet on how and when those loans should be repaid.
The corona recovery fund started in 2021 as an additional means to help EU member states overcome the economic setbacks of the pandemic. In that first year of the fund, only one application was submitted for money from the fund. There were thirteen in the following year and 32 in 2023, according to the report. But for the following years, the European Commission foresees that the EU countries will get up to speed and that the commission will receive about 45 projects annually.
(October 10, 2024)
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