ROME - Not too many months ago, one of the accusations of 'friendly fire' that was addressed to the Italian government led by Giuseppe Conte was that it was allegedly delayed in drafting the PNRR, the National Recovery and Resilience Plan, to be presented to the EU without delay by the end of April.

  Well, now we learn that one of the most loyal and efficient countries in respecting the provisions of the EU, Finland, has decided to postpone this celebrated delivery. Indeed, the ministerial working group on sustainable growth for Finland decided on Tuesday that the final version of Finland’s Recovery and Resilience Plan will be submitted to the European Union in May.

  All EU countries are required to present a national Recovery and Resilience Plan in order to receive funding from the EU’s Recovery and Resilience Facility. Finland’s plan will form part of the Sustainable Growth Programme for Finland. This Programme will boost investment in emissions reducing solutions, accelerate sustainable growth in the economy, and create long-term growth potential. Half of the funding involved will be for promoting a green transition, and about a quarter will be for digitalisation. The Programme will also boost public investment in research, development and innovation by approximately 700 million euros.

  The preliminary version of Finland's Recovery and Resilience Plan was completed on 15 March. The final version of the Plan was to be submitted to the EU on 30 April, but the ministerial working group has decided to change the timetable.

  “Discussions with the European Commission have progressed well but are still in progress. A lot of technical work is involved, so completion of the final Recovery and Resilience Plan will require some additional time,” says the chair of the ministerial working group, Minister of Finance Matti Vanhanen.

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