Finland seeks €437m from EU under Recovery and Resilience Plan

The Ministry of Finance on Friday filed the second payment request under the Recovery and Resilience Plan (RRP) with the European Commission, said the Ministry in a press release.

Finland believes it has achieved further milestones in its RRP.

The total amount of the request is EUR 437 million. However, advance payments already received by Finland will be deducted from this amount, which means that Finland can receive about EUR 378 million based on this request.

For the payment to be made, Finland must have met the milestones and targets set for the payment request in a manner approved by the Commission.

Finland previously received advance payments totalling about EUR 296 million and was paid about EUR 202 million based on its first payment request.

Finland will make four more payment requests after this one.

Finland’s payment request is based on 27 milestones set in its RRP.

The milestones relate to improving the quality and availability of telecommunications networks, digitalisation of rail traffic, reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, exempting the charging of battery electric vehicles or plug-in-hybrid vehicles from income taxation, gypsum treatment of fields, streamlining employment services and work-based and education-based immigration, reforming continuous learning and increasing the number of student places, funding of research infrastructure, investments in key technologies (microelectronics, 6G, artificial intelligence and quantum computing), support for the international growth of enterprises and development of tourism, reforms in the cultural and creative industries and investments in renewable energy in Åland.

The European Commission has two to three months to assess Finland’s payment request. The Commission will then publish a preliminary assessment of whether Finland has reached its milestones.

The EU Member States will decide whether to approve the payment request in a comitology procedure.

The Recovery and Resilience Plan is part of the Sustainable Growth Programme for Finland, which will boost reforms and investments. The Sustainable Growth Programme is funded mainly through NextGenerationEU.