Bulgaria has one month to request €1.7 billion from the fifth payment under RRP

Bulgaria and the other member states have less than a month to submit their final requests for payments under the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF). The deadline for this is September 30, 2026, and countries must also submit all evidence of completed reforms and investments. The European Commission (EC) reiterated this in a press release.

Today, August 31, marks the deadline for implementing the reforms and investments set out in the National Recovery and Resilience Plans (NRRP).

Starting tomorrow, actions taken by member states cannot be taken into account by the Commission when assessing their payment requests – including for payments that have already been suspended – and no further amendments to the recovery and resilience plans can be accepted,” the EC stated.

The Commission adds that it will finalize all payments by December 31, 2026.

The mechanism is at the heart of NextGenerationEU, which represents the EU’s collective response to the crises of recent years, including the COVID-19 pandemic and the energy and geopolitical upheavals following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. To date, €440 billion has been disbursed under NextGenerationEU, and an additional €133 billion is set to be transferred by the end of 2026. Payments are made on a results-based basis – funds are released only after the successful implementation of the agreed-upon reforms and investments.

Some countries have already fully completed their plans. The Commission has given the green light to Sweden’s final payment request, as the country has fulfilled 100% of its investment and reform commitments, shortly after Denmark. For the others, including Bulgaria, the coming weeks are crucial for them to fully utilize the funding before the window closes.

We remind you that earlier this summer, Deputy Prime Minister Atanas Pekanov warned that the fifth payment is the last and has the tightest deadlines.

The work does not end today. We have very tight deadlines; the fifth payment remains, and by August 31, Bulgaria must implement and report on measures related to the fifth payment, which amounts to nearly 1.7 billion euros,” he said when the European Commission approved the country’s fourth payment.

Most recently, Pekanov said in an interview with BNT last week that Bulgaria has already absorbed 70% of the funds under the Recovery and Resilience Facility, and the goal is to increase that share to 95%.

Translated with DeepL.