Bulgaria submitted a request on April 16 to the European Commission (EC) to revise its Recovery and Resilience Plan in accordance with Article 21 of the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF) Regulation, as well as to add to it a REPowerEU chapter, the EC said on April 22.
The proposed REPowerEU chapter introduces three new reforms and four investments (three new and one scaled-up), the EC said.
“The proposed reforms aim to strengthen the governance framework for energy poverty and prepare for retail market liberalisation, increase the transparency of connection procedures for new renewable and storage capacities, enhance the functioning of the balancing energy market, and facilitate the roll-out of demand-response measures,” the Commission said.
The proposal includes investments in areas such as the development of an information system for identifying energy-poor and vulnerable households, the promotion of renewable energy and electric vehicles use in the delivery of social services, and the deployment of additional electricity storage through the scale-up of an existing investment (RESTORE).
Bulgaria also proposes to remove or modify several measures across the plan while maintaining the intention to preserve the RRF funds allocated to Bulgaria, the EC said.
“The proposed changes are linked to objective circumstances that impact the feasibility of carrying out the relevant measures as originally foreseen,” the Commission said.
Since some of the proposed modifications concern outstanding issues under the second payment request, on April 17 Bulgaria requested, in agreement with the Commission, to withdraw the payment request, with a view to resubmit it following the approval of the amended plan.
The Commission will now continue to work with the Bulgarian authorities on the revision of the plan and will assess whether the modified plan continues to meet the RRF criteria, the EC said.
If the assessment is positive, the Commission will make a proposal for an amended Council Implementing Decision, which Member States will have up to four weeks to endorse.
Bulgaria’s Recovery and Resilience Plan includes a wide range of investment and reform measures. The plan is financed by 5.69 billion euro in grants.