Debate: Implementation of the Recovery and Resilience Facility
Date: WEDNESDAY, 22 JUNE 2022
Speaker: Dragoş Pîslaru
Country: Spain
Language: EN

The Recovery and Resilience Facility marks, and will mark for the generations that follow, a new chapter in the history of our European Union. It is indeed a beautiful symbol of solidarity in one of our darkest times, showing that only united we can emerge more resilient following crises such as the pandemic. It puts forward a new concept in EU funds that blends reforms with investments and guides EU Member States in how best to invest the allocated funds. And it has created ownership on responding to the country-specific recommendations that were not taken on board by Member States for years beforehand. It’s also setting the ambition higher for our economic governance framework in showing that the Parliament can and should have a greater role to play. Back in 2020, this House stood united in negotiation with an amazing negotiation team of our rapporteurs and shadows. And we have been demanding at that time things that right now are already in regulation and in course of implementation. The Member States have been asked to draft the recovery and resilience plans in a balanced way, including measures on six pillars, also demanding from Parliament side that there will be proper consultations with stakeholders in the drafting and implementation of plans and, as has been underlined by my colleague, co-rapporteurs, demanding transparency in how money should be spent, highlighting beneficiaries, creating proper control mechanisms and setting up monitoring too. We are right now halfway through this Facility, which we decided back then we would make it last until 2023. Where do we stand on the points that we so much defended? Until now, the Parliament had many initiatives to ensure the proper and effective implementation of the Facility. We organised, as you well know, several plenary debates, drafted several resolutions, expressing our position on key moments in its evolution. We organised much-needed recovery and resilience dialogues with Vice-President Dombrovskis and Commissioner Gentiloni and held recurrent RRF working groups, meetings and discussions with Commission representatives and civil society organisations.  Now in this initiative that we have today debated, related to our own implementation report, it’s an analysis on how we see the progress Member States registered so far. And together with my dear colleagues, Siegfried Mureşan from the EPP and Eider Gardiazabal Rubial from the S&D, together with all the shadows, we produced an extensive analysis on the current state of play. We are glad to see that Member States made the effort and submitted their plans. It was not an easy task. We knew from the beginning that drafting a plan of reforms and investments will be a complex task with a lot of pressure and a lot of expectations. We are glad that almost all plans managed to obtain approval. But do not forget: a plan must never be approved at any cost. Always remember that EU values are essential, non-negotiable, and they must set the foundation of each action, project, reform or investment that uses EU funds. The plans are much more than paperwork to justify the money. The plans in several Member States are a roadmap to development to further expand and develop their economies. The plans are the ways to launch important social reforms. The plans are important steps in being sure that children and youth are taken care of with enough attention. We have read many good ideas in the plans. We have seen investment that could easily be scaled up in other Member States. But I just wanted to say that I am also having things that we could have done better. For instance, too many plans do not properly reflect the ambition set by the European Child Guarantee, and they reflect only partially those of the Reinforced Youth Guarantee. And there are even two Member States that have chosen not to include in their plans measures specifically dedicated to children and youth, but prefer to present measures that foster only skills and digital skills for all citizens. We are living in challenging times, which require both unity and flexibility. Unity also means inclusiveness and Member States did little or not too much to include local and regional authorities, civil society organisations, social partners, academia or other relevant stakeholders in the design of the plans. Governments have now the chance, the opportunity, to prove that the implementation of the plans is done together with the stakeholders, in order to involve them in implementation and monitoring, based on clear and transparent principles. And then flexibility. The current situation in Ukraine is having a heavy impact on energy prices and the need to strengthen this energy security. All these elements can be achieved through REPowerEU, a necessary instrument, which Member States will be able to add in their planned measures to achieve energy sovereignty and independence. Finally, and I would like to end here, we need to choose if the RRF will be just the story or a legacy. And I think that right now the Parliament is doing that and we are doing since we started the work on the RRF, and all this work can be continued if the Parliament gains an increased role in future EU initiatives.