The country is three days away from submitting its sixth request for a €2.1 billion tranche from the subsidy arm of the Recovery Fund. This was announced by Deputy Minister of National Economy and Finance Nikos Papathanasis during a press conference, in which he referred to the quarterly action report for the entire portfolio.

In particular, as the responsible coordinator of the Recovery Fund, Orestis Kavalakis, explained, on July 18, the revised plan for Greece is expected to be approved by Ecofin, to fully utilize the funds, and then the request for the next tranche will be submitted.

At the same time, Papathanasis described the submission of the request after the formal revision approval, but also the changes that have been made, and referred to a framework of funds of €31.5 billion to be allocated until the end of 2026. He also pointed out that the MFF is the highest in the last 15 years, while in the first six months, the Recovery Fund exceeded the target for absorption by 3% and overall, the MFF met the target by 98%.

On the “My House II” programme, the deputy minister said 50% had been achieved. That is, an amount of 1 billion euros out of a total of 2 billion euros has been “locked” in more than 8,000 submissions of citizens who have received approval. The average income is 20,600 euros, the average age is 38 years, and the average commercial value is 149,000 euros. The first in terms of submissions is the region of Eastern Macedonia-Thrace (with 620 submissions), 2nd is Thessaly (with more than 600 submissions) and 3rd is Western Greece (with more than 470 submissions).

For the NSRF, Papathanasis said that calls amounted to 75% of the budget and contracts to 45%. The “Extroversion” programme has been running since 17 July with grants of €200 million, while on PPPs, he said there are 10 projects in full swing, with a total investment of €1.4 billion. The top project is the tender process for the new cancer hospital in Thessaloniki.

Finally, regarding the Fair Development Transition, he pointed out that the invitations amount to 1.6 billion euros and mentioned six large companies that want to start business in Megalopolis. “The good news for the Megalopolis region is the approval of six large companies setting up in the region. We have six applications of 210 million euros related to the creation of data centers, battery plants and organochemical fertilizer plants. These are investments that create new and better-paid jobs,” he said.