Commission endorses positive preliminary assessment of the Netherlands’ first payment request for €1.3 billion under the Recovery and Resilience Facility

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

Today, the Commission has endorsed a positive preliminary assessment of the Netherlands’ first payment request for €1.3 billion under the Recovery and Resilience Facility, the centrepiece of NextGenerationEU.

Following its assessment of the payment request submitted on 24 May 2024, the Commission has preliminarily concluded that the Netherlands has satisfactorily completed the 25 milestones and 5 targets set out in the Council Implementing Decision for the first instalment, including the first milestone of the Netherlands’ REPowerEU chapter.

Sixteen reforms and eight investments will drive positive change for citizens and businesses in the Netherlands in the areas of the green transition, digitalisation, as well as the labour market. The payment request covers important reforms relating to the pension system, environmental taxation, the housing market, self-employment, digital transformation of the central government, aggressive tax planning and the electricity grid code. The payment request also includes a set of investments in the areas of training and career advice for individuals in the Dutch labour market, rail traffic management, research and development of quantum technologies, digital equipment for students and e-health care for people living at home.

Flagship measures in this payment request include:

• ‘The Netherlands continues to learn’: this investment improves the employment prospects of individuals in the Dutch labour market through multiple subsidy schemes. These were created to mitigate the negative effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the labour market, through which many jobs ceased to exist or changed, while new jobs also emerged. In this payment request, financial support is provided to qualified career advisors to discuss on an individual basis people’s job situation and future prospects. Based on these interviews, development plans with short- and long-term actions were drawn up. In addition, individuals could also participate in free training and learning activities to support skills development. This prevented individuals from becoming unemployed, or if unemployed, helped them get back to work.
• Reform of the electricity grid code: this reform, which is part of the REPowerEU chapter of the Netherlands, provides new tools for grid operators to manage the grid in a flexible way during periods of congestion. One of these tools is the capacity restricting contract, which allows the grid operator to request that a connected party does not make full use of the transport capacity when the grid is (or risks being) congested, in order to free up capacity on the grid. Addressing grid congestion in the Netherlands is not only essential to ensure the security of electricity supply, but also in view of the integration and deployment of renewable energy sources. Renewable energy sources, such as wind and solar power, are dependent on weather conditions and natural resources, leading to fluctuations in energy production. This reform of the Dutch electricity grid code helps to accommodate such fluctuations, thereby enabling the transition towards a more sustainable, clean, and reliable energy future.

Next steps

The Commission has now sent its preliminary assessment of the Netherlands´ fulfilment of the milestones and targets required for this payment to the Economic and Financial Committee (EFC), which has four weeks to deliver its opinion. The payment to the Netherlands can take place following the EFC’s opinion, and the adoption of a payment decision by the Commission.

Background

The Netherlands’ recovery and resilience plan includes a wide range of investment and reform measures. The plan will be financed by €5.4 billion in grants.

You can find more information on the Dutch recovery plan on this page, which features an interactive map of projects financed by the RRF, as well as on the Recovery and Resilience Scoreboard. More information on the process of payment requests under the RRF can be found in this document of questions and answers.