Malta's National Recovery and Resilience Plan: Latest state of play

Malta's National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NRRP) has a total value of €344.9 million. However, under the EU's Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF), which is at the core of the EU's Next Generation EU instrument, Malta is expected to receive around €316.4 million, slightly below the value of the plan, and entirely in grants. On 30 June 2022, the European Commission recalculated the maximum grant amounts for all Member States; this resulted in a cut for Malta and a new total of €258.3 million. Malta has not requested any loans so far. Under the RRF Regulation, the option to request loan support of up to 6.8 % of 2019 gross national income is available until 31 August 2023. Whereas in nominal terms, Malta has the second smallest allocation after Luxembourg, in terms of RRF grants per capita, it ranks higher: the value of Malta's grants under the RRF equals approximately 2.3 % of its 2019 gross domestic product (GDP), less than the average for the EU overall (in comparison, the RRF equals 5.2 % of EU-27 GDP in 2019). In December 2021, Malta received €41.1 million in pre-financing. A year later, on 19 December 2022, it submitted to the Commission the first payment request for a total of €52.3 million in grants. The Maltese plan takes into consideration the Council's 2019 and 2020 country-specific recommendations, and aligns with both national economic and investment plans and funding under EU cohesion policy programmes for the 2021-2027 period. The overall objective is to contribute to a sustainable, equitable, green and digital recovery. In particular, the plan aims to digitalise small and medium-sized enterprises and the public administration, promote sustainable public transport and electric vehicles, and step-up the fight against money laundering. It embraces the green and digital transitions – major common European challenges – and envisages 53.8 % of the total allocation for climate objectives, while 25.5 % will contribute to the digital target. The share of the allocation dedicated to the green transition makes Malta's NRRP one of the greenest. The European Parliament participates in interinstitutional forums for cooperation and discussion on the implementation of the RRF, and scrutinises the work of the European Commission. This briefing is one in a series covering all EU Member States. Second edition. The 'NGEU delivery' briefings are updated at key stages throughout the lifecycle of the plans.