Slovenia downsizes Recovery and Resilience Plan amid delays

The government has scaled back the national Recovery and Resilience Plan by scrapping several projects that would not have been completed by the mid-2026 deadline amidst warnings from the EU Commission that delays are becoming very risky.

Finance Minister Klemen Boštjančič said that the projects which have been removed from the plan would be completed with Slovenia’s own funds and in more realistic time frames.

“One of the main criteria used by the government to identify investments was time risk. All investments included in the plan must be completed by mid-2026,” he said.

Overall, Slovenia plans to use up its entire allotment of €1.49 billion in grants but only €545 in loans, down from the original plan of using €705 million. Another €122 million is available in RePowerEU funds.

The draft changes will now be sent to Brussels for approval, which Slovenia expects to receive in autumn.

The change comes a month and a half after the Commission warned Slovenia that the risk of delays in implementing Slovenia’s recovery and resilience plan is increasing.

It advised the country to strengthen its governance structure and administrative capacity and ensure that the necessary decisions are taken immediately.

The biggest change to the plan is a reduction in the scope of flood mitigation projects, initially valued at €280 million but now total €120 million.

This was one of the biggest sticking points of the plan after the media revealed that many of the proposed flood mitigation projects were in local communities where flood risk was low or near zero.

The Recovery and Resilience Plan also fell victim to domestic political fighting. It was devised by the previous right-wing government, and the new left-liberal government wanted to change it as it decried its lack of overarching strategy and focus on basic infrastructure projects.

However, it has encountered pushback from the Commission and has spent months negotiating potential changes with Commission officials, a process which Minister Boštjančič recently described as “rigid”.

(Sebastijan R. Maček | sta.si)