Brussels slashing loans via the RRF

The European Commission has pulled the brakes on the disbursement of loans from the Recovery and Resilience Fund (RRF), which have been outpacing grants, so that these two forms of support can develop evenly until their completion in August 2026.
Greece will submit its fifth payment request this Friday, December 20, for a total of 3.1 billion euros, which will concern both grants and loans.
The request for grants will come to €1.3 billion, as initially announced, but the request for loans will be cut to €1.8 billion, instead of the initial plan of €2.3 billion.
Accordingly, the entire planning of loan installments has been reformed, so that “it is more balanced with the grant installments,” according to a competent source.
The new plan foresees that the last request, to be submitted on August 30, 2026, will be the largest.
As Deputy Minister for National Economy and Finance Nikos Papathanasis told Parliament during the 2025 state budget debate on Friday, with the disbursement of the fifth payment request, the total disbursements from the Recovery Fund will reach €21.3 billion.
This amount corresponds to 65% of the resources available to Greece, amounting to €36 billion.