Commission endorses Germany’s €30.3 billion modified recovery and resilience plan, including a REPowerEU chapter

This article is brought to you in association with the European Commission.

Today, the Commission has given a positive assessment of Germany’s modified recovery and resilience plan (RRP), which includes a REPowerEU chapter. The plan is now worth €30.3 billion in grants and covers 17 reforms and 28 investments.

Germany’s REPowerEU chapter consists of two new reforms, two new investments and one scaled-up investment to deliver on the REPowerEU Plan‘s objectives to make Europe independent of Russian fossil fuels well before 2030. These measures focus on increasing the share of renewables in the German energy mix by speeding-up planning procedures, decarbonising freight road transport and supporting energy-efficient renovations in residential buildings.

The revised recovery and resilience plan includes modifications to eight existing measures. These changes are justified based on objective circumstances and reflect developments hindering the fulfilment of certain investments as originally planned, such as the shortage of skilled labour, notably in the IT sector, supply chain disruptions for information technology, increased security concerns due to Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine and the availability of better alternatives to achieve the original ambition of certain reforms and investments. Despite a longer timeline for completion, the reforms and linked investments, notably for the digitalisation of the public administration, remain ambitious.

An additional boost to Germany’s green transition  

The modified plan has a strong focus on the green transition, allocating 49.5% of the available funds to measures that support climate objectives (up from 47% in the original plan). In particular, the two new reforms, the scaled-up investment along with the two new investments included in the REPowerEU chapter contribute significantly to the green dimension of the plan.

The reforms aim at accelerating the deployment of onshore and offshore wind energy power plants. The national Wind Energy on Land Act defines for each federal state the land-use target for wind energy. The act also contains provisions to enable federal states to designate additional areas for onshore wind generation. In addition, the Offshore Wind Energy Act increases the expansion targets for offshore wind energy in Germany from 20 GW to at least 30 GW by 2030, and to 40 GW by 2035 and 70 GW by 2045. It also contains provisions to speed up administrative procedures.

The two new investments promote the procurement of climate-friendly commercial vehicles and the acceleration of planning and approval processes for hydrogen infrastructure projects, utilising digital platforms to streamline administrative procedures.

Finally, the scaled-up investment supports the energy-efficient renovation of residential buildings. Besides the support the plan already provides for full renovation programmes and individual measures, this scale-up will support 190,000 additional individual renovation measures.

Reinforcing Germany’s digital preparedness and social resilience 

The digital ambition of the German plan remains strong,as the revised RRP still devotes 47.5% of its funds to digital measures. It continues to address the digitalisation of public administration and education, the digital transformation of healthcare services and hospitals, and the automotive industry’s digital transition. Two Important Projects of Common European Interest (IPCEIs) on cloud infrastructure and microchips are also covered.

The plan also maintains its ambitious social dimension. The modified RRP, including the REPowerEU chapter, features an extensive set of mutually reinforcing reforms and investments that contribute to addressing challenges related to education and training, labour market participation, labour taxation and social policy. The energy efficiency renovation of buildings also plays a role in limiting energy poverty.

Next steps

The Council will now have, as a rule, four weeks to endorse the Commission’s assessment. 

The Commission will authorise further disbursements based on the satisfactory fulfilment of the milestones and targets outlined in Germany’s revised recovery and resilience plan, reflecting progress in the implementation of the investments and reforms.