25/08/2021 09:27
Cabinet on Monday approved the agreements between Cyprus and the European Commission on the island`s recovery and resilience plan and FinMin Constantinos Petrides has already signed the final document to be send to the European Commission for the final signature, Theodosis Tsiolas, Permanent Secretary of the Directorate General for European Programmes, Coordination and Development told the Cyprus News Agency.
The Cypriot plan provides for €1 billion in grants and €0.2 billion in loans provided the EU under the Next Generation EU package launched by the EU in a bid to boost the recovery and resilience of the EU members from the Covid pandemic.
Tsiolas explained that the EC has a period of 2 months to disburse a first deposit of 13% of the 1.2 bln euro which amounts to around €156 mln.
He also said that by the end of 2021 it is important to implement the first targets of the plan so that the EC could pay forward the first instalment, in addition to the first deposit of 156 mln euro.
Tsiolas said that it is also important for the parliament to approve the bills for the reform of the civil service and those related to combat of corruption and promote a series of green economy projects. He also referred to the bill on the reform of the local authorities set to be discussed on September 9th at the parliament.
Cyprus News Agency has learned that the Directorate General for European Programmes, Coordination and Development is setting up an information system through which the competent authorities will brief and update on the course of the development of the Cyprus recovery plan.