European Commission Okays Fourth Payment of €923 million under Recovery Plan

        Bratislava, July 1 (TASR) - The European Commission (EC) has approved to Slovakia the fourth payment worth €923 million under the recovery plan, Olga Dubravska of the National Implementation and Coordination Authority (NIKA) reported on Monday, adding that after deducting part of the pre-financing Slovakia has already received, it will be given a payment of more than €798 million.
        The payment is expected to arrive in the account at the end of this summer for meeting 15 milestones. "We've met all fifteen milestones in the 4th payment request in the Recovery and Resilience Plan, which guarantees a payment of €923 million. Some delays in the assessment were mainly due to the new priorities of the current governing coalition, for example the payment of the 13th pension. We've managed to convince the EC that the compensation measures in place sufficiently guarantee the sustainability of the pension system in the future," said Vice-Premier for the Recovery Plan Peter Kmec (Voice-SD).
        According to the Government Office, thanks to this funding, it'll be possible to implement several reforms, such as the reform of integration and financing of long-term social and health-care, and the reform of counselling and prevention in the field of mental health support for children, pupils and students.
        Together with the previous three payment requests, Slovakia has already received more than €3 billion from the EU, which it can use to implement the reforms and investments of the recovery plan.