EC to Approve Revision of Recovery Plan, Funds to Boost Public Services

Bratislava, May 13 (TASR) - The European Commission (EC) is expected on Tuesday to approve a revision of the recovery plan via which Slovakia aims to reallocate unused funds, mainly directing them towards improving public services such as health care, the construction of social service homes and the development of nursery and primary schools, TASR has learnt from Vice-premier for the Recovery and Resilience Plan Peter Kmec (Voice-SD). "I can announce that the European Commission is expected to approve a revision of the recovery plan today via which Slovakia is seeking to reallocate certain funds that it can't use in other segments. These funds will be additionally directed towards improving public services, particularly in health care, in the form of further hospital development, as well as the construction of more social service homes and nursery or primary schools," explained Kmec. According to Kmec, Slovakia is also waiting for a positive decision from the EC on the fifth payment request worth €600 million. "This has already been agreed at the Commission level, and now we're just waiting for formal approval in the coming weeks. We're preparing a sixth payment request of almost one billion euros," he added. "It will be a very important payment, which will again include some key reforms, primarily the reform of social services financing. These funds are expected to be transferred to our account in the second half of the year," noted Kmec. "Then we'll have three more payment requests remaining. One in the autumn of this year and the other two over the course of next year, as the recovery plan ends in mid-2026. We're well on track to meet all the milestones and targets so that the €6.4-billion financial package will be transferred to Slovakia within the required timeframes," added Kmec. lin/df