site.btaCabinet to Request Second Payment under Recovery and Resilience Plan by July 23

In response to a question from the GERB-UDF parliamentary group on Thursday, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Innovation and Growth Tomislav Donchev told the parliamentary Committee on European Affairs and Oversight of the European Funds that by July 23, the government plans to make a new request for a second payment under the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NRRP), while negotiations with the European Commission (EC) are ongoing.

The goal is for the funds under the second tranche to be made available in early autumn, possibly as early as September. Donchev added: "At the same time, the original plan we had for a third payment before the end of the year has been revised. We will try to pull the plan, which poses an almost impossible task, but we have to manage, we have to draft all documents and [to have a] request for the third payment ready by the end of September."

Talks have been held with the EC to negotiate a reduced number of payments by bundling them. This step was taken in order to make up for the lost time in the implementation of the reforms and investments under the NRRP. The talks aim to reduce the number of payments from the still envisaged nine to five.

There have also been talks with the EC to reduce the number of stages and targets under the NRRP from 321 to 259, the Deputy Prime Minister reported.