“So far, the European Commission has granted €48.5 billion to nine Member States in pre-financing,” Veerle Nuyts, spokeswoman for economic and financial affairs of the community executive announced.

“We look forward to continuing pre-financing to other Member States throughout September,” added Veerle Nuyts.

In early August, the European Commission granted €2.2 billion to Portugal regarding the pre-financing of 13 percent of the Recovery and Resilience Plan (PRR), representing a global amount of €16.6 billion, approved recently.

The European Commission also disbursed €2.25 billion to Germany in pre-financing, equivalent to 9 percent of the country's RRP financial allocation.

“These pre-financing payments will help kick-start implementation of the crucial investment and reform measures outlined in Germany's RRP,” Veerle Nuyts told the press.

In addition to Portugal (€2.2 billion) and Germany (€2.25 billion), the nine Member States that already have initial funding to support the post-crisis recovery of Covid-19 are Luxembourg (€12.1 million), Belgium (€770 million), Greece (€4 billion), Italy (€24.9 billion), Lithuania (€289 million), Spain (€9 billion) and France (€5.1 billion).

Portugal was the first Member State to formally deliver to Brussels its national plan to access funds from the Recovery and Resilience Mechanism – a central element of the "NextGenerationEU" package agreed in the EU to overcome the Covid-19 crisis – and the first to see it approved, being also one of the first countries to receive funds.

At the time, Brussels underlined that “this payment will contribute to launching the application of essential measures in terms of investment and reform outlined in Portugal's recovery and resilience plan”, representing a “historic moment in the execution of the Portuguese PRR”.

The Portuguese PRR, which received the 'green light' from the Commission on 13 June and was formally approved by the Ecofin Council exactly one month later, has a global value of €16.6 billion, namely €13.9 billion in non-refundable grants and €2.7 billion soft loans.

By the end of the year, the Commission intends to mobilise a total amount of up to €80 billion in the form of long-term financing to be complemented by short-term EU bonds, with a view to financing the first disbursements to Member States. Members projected under the "NextGenerationEU" instrument.

The funds will fund the Recovery and Resilience Mechanism, valued at €672.5 billion (at 2018 prices) and the core element of “NextGenerationEU”, the €750 billion fund approved by European leaders in July 2020 for the EU's economic recovery from the crisis caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Currently, 16 EU countries have their RRPs approved to access Covid-19 post-crisis funding, and pre-financing disbursements are expected to continue.