Implementation report on the Recovery and Resilience Facility

Wording as published by the EP, in English.

1. Amendment 1Rejected

   Paragraph 41 a (new)

   Tabled by João Oliveira · The Left

   Added: 41a. Calls on the Commission, to submit, on the basis of Article 175 third paragraph of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, a proposal, within three months, to amend Regulation (EU) 2021/241 to incorporate an extension to the period for implementing the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF) until 31 August 2028;

2. Amendment 2Rejected

   Paragraph 1 a (new)

   Tabled by Sarah Knafo · ESN

   Added: 1a. Recalls that the RRF constitutes, first and foremost, a new source of debt for Member States already burdened with high levels of indebtedness; stresses that all RRF expenditure, together with interest payments and operational costs, must ultimately be repaid by European taxpayers, who are already overburdened by taxation;

3. Amendment 3Rejected

   Paragraph 18

   Tabled by Sarah Knafo · ESN

   … financial markets or that sought to compensate for a reduction in RRF Removed: grants; Added: grants, but not for Member States that had access to lower market rates for borrowing; points out that some Member States have made limited use of RRF … on the use of unspent funds in the light of tight public Removed: budgets and urgent EU strategic priorities; Added: budgets; believes that such funds should be used for early repayment of the related debt in order to reduce the associated interest costs, which are already estimated to exceed initial expectations by between EUR 17 billion and EUR 27 billion; calls for an assessment of how and under which conditions unused RRF …

4. Amendment 4Rejected

   Paragraph 19 a (new)

   Tabled by Sarah Knafo · ESN

   Added: 19a. Rejects any tax increases or new taxes, given the already heavy fiscal burden on European taxpayers; stresses that the resources needed to repay the NextGenerationEU debt should be obtained through reductions in EU expenditure;

5. Amendment 5Rejected

   Paragraph 21

   Tabled by Sarah Knafo · ESN

   … the Commission had issued European green bonds amounting to EUR 68.2 billion; Added: emphasises that this bond issuance amounts to ‘borrowing to repay’, which constitutes a dangerous overreach and risks trapping the EU in a vicious cycle of indebtedness;

6. Amendment 9Rejected

   Recital A a (new)

   Tabled by Julien Sanchez, Angéline Furet, Nikola Bartůšek · PfE

   Added: Aa. whereas the RRF was conceived with a lack of due preparation, putting the EU’s budget at significant risk until 2058; calls on the Commission to take into account the observations made by the ECA and to verify monitoring mechanisms in order to effectively assess the actual efficiency of the investments made;

7. Amendment 10Rejected

   Recital E

   Tabled by Julien Sanchez, Angéline Furet, Jana Nagyová +2 · PfE

   E. Removed: whereas, due to the lack of progress in Added: whereas the expenditures under NextGenerationEU were decided without any consideration for their short-, medium- and long-term financial consequences on the Union’s budget; whereas, in order to avoid introducing new own resources Removed: in the EU and the need to ensure the sustainability of the EU’s repayment plan, a clear and reliable long-term funding strategy is essential to meet repayment obligations without forcing difficult trade-offs in Added: that would place an additional burden on European taxpayers, identifying and eliminating non-compulsory and/or unnecessary expenditure from the EU budget Removed: that could undermine future investments and policy priorities; whereas further discussions and concrete financial solutions will be necessary to secure the long-term viability of the EU’s debt repayment plan; Added: and adopting a highly critical approach towards such expenditure now appears to be urgent so as to ensure compliance with the Union’s repayment obligations;

8. Amendment 13Rejected

   Recital P

   Tabled by Julien Sanchez, Angéline Furet, Jana Nagyová +2 · PfE

   … of the RRF, and containing information on its impact in the long Removed: term; Added: term, on the identified cases of fraud and on the mechanisms used to carry them out, as well as a quantitative and qualitative assessment of the means deployed by the Commission to monitor the proper use of RRF funds;

9. Amendment 15Rejected

   Paragraph 7

   Tabled by Enikő Győri, Paolo Borchia, Jorge Martín Frías · PfE

   7. Notes that Removed: the RRF has incentivised the implementation of some Added: there is no clear evidence that the RRF would be a catalyst for the reforms included in the country-specific recommendations made in the context of the European Removed: Semester through the inclusion of such reforms in the NRRPs; Added: Semester, as it is difficult to see any significant difference in the implementation progress between the periods of 2011-2018 and 2019-20221a; underlines that there has been a qualitative leap forward in terms of … the context of the European Semester remains low and has even dropped; Added: 1a Economic Governance and EMU Scrutiny Unit (EGOV), ‘Economic Dialogue with the European Commission on the launch of the 2025 European Semester cycle’, In-Depth Analysis, 23 January 2025, p. 12.

10. Amendment 16Rejected

    Paragraph 17

    Tabled by Julien Sanchez, Angéline Furet · PfE

    … level which is exclusively based on financing not linked to costs (FNLC); Removed: recalls that Article 8 of the RRF Regulation stipulates that the RRF must be implemented by the Commission in direct management in accordance with the relevant rules adopted pursuant to Article 322 TFEU, in particular the Financial Regulation and the Rule of Law Conditionality Regulation; regrets that the Council did not agree to insert specific rules in … Regulation to address the risks of this delivery model, such as double Removed: funding; Added: funding, corruption and conflicts of interest; considers that the rules of the Financial Regulation should be fully applicable …

11. Amendment 18Rejected

    Paragraph 19 a (new)

    Tabled by Julien Sanchez, Angéline Furet, Jana Nagyová +2 · PfE

    Added: 19a. Regrets the absence of a comprehensive and credible long-term repayment plan for NGEU liabilities, including clear annual projections, repayment mechanisms and contingencies; calls on the Commission to present such a plan without delay to ensure transparency, budgetary predictability and the long-term sustainability of the EU’s public finances;

12. Amendment 19Rejected

    Paragraph 20

    Tabled by Julien Sanchez, Angéline Furet, Jana Nagyová +1 · PfE

    … per year from 2028, equivalent to 15-20 % of the 2025 annual Removed: budget ; Added: budget; recalls that recourse to special instruments had to be made in the … future EU budget and limits the capacity to respond to future challenges; Added: deplores this budgetary irresponsibility, which entails serious and lasting consequences for future generations and budgets, and which risks undermining investment levels until 2058;

13. Amendment 22Rejected

    Paragraph 24

    Tabled by Julien Sanchez, Angéline Furet, Jana Nagyová +1 · PfE

    … in the development of rural, peripheral and outermost, isolated and remote areas, Added: in particular in order to ensure reliable access to drinking water, which is a necessity linked to human dignity, and in the fields of affordable housing, social protection and the integration …

14. Amendment 24Rejected

    Paragraph 33

    Tabled by Enikő Győri, Paolo Borchia, Jorge Martín Frías · PfE

    33. Highlights the Removed: role of ‘super milestones’ in protecting the EU’s financial interests against rule of law deficiencies and in ensuring the full implementation of the requirements under Article 22 of the RRF Regulation; welcomes the fact that all but one Member State have satisfactorily fulfilled their ‘super milestones’; recalls that the Commission must recover any pre-financing that has not been netted against regular payment requests by the end of the RRF; Added: fact that the Commission’s assessment of the fulfilment of milestones is not sufficiently transparent but rather is political without well-defined objectives or clear standards and deadlines; recalls, in this regard, the discretionary power of the Commission; regrets the fact that, as a result, it is possible to misuse super milestones as political blackmail in certain Member States;

15. Amendment 26Rejected

    Paragraph 34

    Tabled by Julien Sanchez, Angéline Furet, Jana Nagyová +2 · PfE

    34. Removed: Notes Added: Deplores the high administrative burden and complexity brought by the RRF; stresses the … Commission guidance of July 2024 with simplifications and clarifications to streamline RRF Removed: implementation but Added: implementation; deplores the fact that they were not considered from the outset, reinforcing the perception of complete improvisation in the design of the RRF, and expects the Commission to act swiftly on its promise to cut the …

16. Amendment 27Rejected

    Paragraph 35 a (new)

    Tabled by Julien Sanchez, Angéline Furet, Jana Nagyová +1 · PfE

    Added: 35a. Stresses that it is extremely serious that the European Union is unable to demonstrate simplicity and efficiency, and that this way of operating puts us at a disadvantage compared to our competitors in a globalised economy, which are far more reactive and pragmatic;

17. Amendment 29Rejected

    Paragraph 39

    Tabled by Julien Sanchez, Angéline Furet, Jana Nagyová +1 · PfE

    … from one NRRP to the other, as consistently reported by the ECA; Added: notes that these anomalies demonstrate unequal treatment and a lack of vision, and reinforce the perception of irresponsibility;

18. Amendment 31Rejected

    Paragraph 44

    Tabled by Julien Sanchez, Angéline Furet, Jana Nagyová +2 · PfE

    … last payment request, thus avoiding the fulfilment of the last milestones and Removed: targets; Added: targets, once again demonstrating the evident weaknesses in the architecture of the RRF, whose shortcomings are particularly serious, given that it is a historic fund worth several hundred billion euro, financed through borrowing that will indebt us for over 30 years, and for which certain irresponsible bodies are now calling for the creation of own resources that would burden households and businesses in the Union, which this fund was initially intended to support;

19. Amendment 32Rejected

    Paragraph 45 a (new)

    Tabled by Julien Sanchez, Angéline Furet · PfE

    Added: 45a. Deplores the lack of real-time monitoring and transparency for citizens regarding the use of RRF funds; considers that, for historic funds of such magnitude, which will lead to massive debts that will burden the Union’s budget for decades, this level of transparency should be an absolute minimum, and that merely listing the main final beneficiaries is completely insufficient to ensure transparency in the use of public money;

20. Amendment 34Rejected

    Paragraph 47 a (new)

    Tabled by Julien Sanchez, Angéline Furet, Jana Nagyová +1 · PfE

    Added: 47a. Notes that the resources allocated to controlling the use of RRF funds are clearly insufficient and facilitate irregularities, which is an extremely serious situation for a fund of such magnitude;

21. Amendment 35Rejected

    Paragraph 55 a (new)

    Tabled by Julien Sanchez, Angéline Furet, Nikola Bartůšek · PfE

    Added: 55a. Stresses the numerous cases of irregularities and investments exposed to risks of non-compliance, including technically completed projects that may be tainted by illegal working conditions, conflicts of interest or artificial cost overruns, as well as cases of irregularities currently under investigation;

22. Amendment 36Rejected

    Paragraph 59

    Tabled by Enikő Győri, Paolo Borchia, Jorge Martín Frías · PfE

    59. Removed: Regrets Added: Recalls the fact that Added: Parliament’s role is laid down in Articles 25 and 26 of the RRF Regulation; reiterates that, based on this regulation, Parliament has no role in the design of NRRPs and is not consulted on payment requests; Removed: criticises furthermore the fact that Parliament has not been provided with a clear and traceable overview of the implementation status of projects and payments; expects to be informed about the context of NRRP revisions in order to make its own assessment of the revisions and to have an enhanced role in possible future instruments based on the RRF experience; Added: emphasises, in this regard, that Parliament must always act within the remit of its competences;

23. Amendment 37Rejected

    Paragraph 66 a (new)

    Tabled by Julien Sanchez, Angéline Furet, Jana Nagyová +1 · PfE

    Added: 66a. Stresses that the RRF facility has set a worrying precedent in terms of budgetary implementation and transparency; considers that this exceptional mechanism, designed in a context of urgency, should under no circumstances serve as a model for the next MFF;

24. Amendment 38Rejected

    Paragraph 82

    Tabled by Julien Sanchez, Enikő Győri, Angéline Furet +5 · PfE

    82. Stresses that Removed: any possible future budgetary decisions on EU borrowing should Added: the NGEU borrowing did not respect the unity of the budget and Parliament’s role as part of the budgetary authority; Added: underlines, furthermore, that any possible future budgetary decisions on EU borrowing would put severe pressure not just on the EU budget but also on European taxpayers, and highlights the risks of cost overruns for the repayment of debt, resulting … cover these costs without presenting a detriment to other programmes or political Removed: priorities; Added: priorities, which was manifestly not the case in this context and constitutes an extremely serious precedent, likely to have lasting negative consequences for the Union’s budget and for future generations;