Over €40 billion to Be Available to Slovakia from EU

Bratislava, July 21 (TASR) – Slovakia will receive €34.1 billion from the European Union (EU) in the upcoming years, said Prime Minister Igor Matovic (OLaNO) upon arriving back from the EU summit in Brussels on Tuesday, adding that a total of €40 billion should be available to the country along with a soft loan from the EU’s recovery fund.

Slovak should thus be able to spend a record sum on projects worth over €6 billion per year on average.

According to the prime minister, €8 billion will be available to Slovakia as unused money from the current programme period, €7.5 billion from the EU’s recovery fund and €18.6 billion from the EU’s 2021-27 budget. In addition, Slovakia will be able to draw loans of up to €6.8 billion from the recovery fund, while its own co-financing of projects is planned to reach €2.9 billion.

“This isn’t good but great news for Slovakia,” said Matovic when evaluating the results of the summit. However, he noted that it will be difficult to draw this money. “One huge task lies ahead of all of us in Slovakia – to think up responsible reforms in which to invest this money,” he stressed.

EU leaders agreed on the EU’s seven-year budget and a recovery plan amounting to over €1.82 trillion early on Tuesday morning. They had to overcome big differences in opinions on the recovery fund, which is aimed at restarting the economies of countries hit by coronavirus. They eventually adopted a compromise in the form of reducing grants to €390 billion from the total package of €750 billion, which was proposed by the Slovak prime minister.