EU Commission urges faster implementation of investment, reforms to spend EU's Recovery Fund

BRUSSELS (Reuters) -The European Commission urged EU governments on Wednesday to speed up the implementation of reforms and investments so that they manage to spend the billions of euros still available to them in the EU's Recovery fund before the August 2026 deadline.

EU governments have some 750 billion euros available to them, in grants and cheap loans, to spend on making their economies greener and more digitalised under the EU's Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF) -- a joint borrowing programme to rebuild economies after the pandemic.

So far, the Commission has disbursed 315 billion euros of the total as governments have met over 2,000 agreed milestones and targets that the EU payouts depend on.

The deadline for meeting all the agreed milestones and targets is on August 31, 2026.

"With these deadlines fast approaching, and more than 335 billion euros in funding still available to Member States, it is vital to accelerate the implementation of the RRF," the Commission said.

(Reporting by Jan Strupczewski)