Slovak MEPs across the political spectrum in the European Parliament have welcomed the approval of an agreement to include REPowerEU measures in national recovery plans to reduce dependence on Russian fossil fuels, accelerate the green transformation and fight energy poverty. The agreement implies that Member States requesting additional funding through the amended Recovery and Resilience Plan will have to include energy saving measures, clean energy production and diversification of energy supply in their national plans.
According to Miriam Lexmann from the European People's Party the vote is a step towards making available the funding needed to help Member States support critical infrastructure projects or improve the energy efficiency of buildings. It is also about using unspent cohesion funds to support vulnerable households as well as businesses most affected by the energy crisis. She recalled that Slovakia will be able to transfer up to 10% of the unspent cohesion funds, which should mean around €1.5 billion, and another €1 billion should be able to be used from the newly available cohesion funds to support the objectives of the REPowerEU package.
Monika Beňová from the Socialist faction pointed out that if the member states want to receive more funds, they will have to put more emphasis on energy savings, diversification or production of energy from renewable sources when implementing investments from the recovery plans. "The measures taken should also be aimed at protecting vulnerable groups or supporting small and medium-sized enterprises. The costs of accelerating the reduction of dependence on energy imports from Russia must not be passed on to households and industry," she said.
Source: TASR
