With its application for €264.2 million in Recovery and Resilience Facility loans (RRF) under the major NextGenerationEU recovery plan, Belgium is the second smallest borrower among the Member States that have applied for these low-interest loans, the European Commission's final overview showed on Friday.
13 of the 27 EU Member States will make use of the RRF loans under the post-Covid recovery plan, totalling €292.6 billion, representing a take-up of 76% of the amount of these EU loans available. Some requested them upfront; others, such as Belgium, requested them when revising their plan this summer.
Among these borrowing states, only Cyprus requested less than Belgium: €200.3 million. The biggest borrowers are Italy (€122.6 billion), Spain (€84.2 billion) and Poland (€34.5 billion).
The loan applications are now being assessed by the Commission and will have to be approved by the Council.
Initially, the Belgian applications to the RRF were for grants only, amounting to €5.9 billion. But the strong recovery of the Belgian economy in 2021 and 2022 has reduced this amount to €4.5 billion.
Allowing for adjustments at the revision stage of the national plans (Brexit reserve, RePowerEU allocation, loan), whose deadline was 31 August, the revised Belgian plan now involves €5.3 billion of RRF funds.
Among the 14 Member States that have not made use of RRF loans are France, Germany, the Netherlands and Luxembourg.
