European Commission’s Recovery Proposal Includes €600 Billion For Long-Term Resilience

Declan Foraise

With European states struggling to meet the COVID-19 challenge, the European Commission is proposing €750 billion in additional funding, much of it targeted to green development.

27 May 2020 | Five months after floating the idea of a “European Green Deal” to achieve zero net greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, the European Commission has proposed funding that Green Deal in part through a €750 billion COVID-19 recovery instrument called “Next Generation EU,” which is embedded in a €1.85 trillion budget proposed today.

The bulk of the funding is earmarked towards a €560 billion “Recovery and Resilience Facility,” which will be equipped with a grant facility of up to €310 billion and will be able to make up to €250 billion available in loans. Support will be available to all Member States but concentrated on the most affected and where resilience needs are the greatest.

It’s not yet clear how much if the funding will go towards the European Green Deal, which is an ambitious plan that European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen first floated in December, 2019.

The proposal will go before the European Parliament in the summer.

Declan Foraise is a retired forester who primarily covers land use issues in Europe and Latin America.

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