An in depth look at Belgium’s Recovery and Resilience plan

In order to address the economic crisis resulting from COVID-19 in a fair, equitable and environmentally conscious manner, the European Commission will support efforts at national level, in particular in the most affected countries through NEXT Generation EU. The recovery plan will raise funds by temporarily raising the own resources’ ceiling to 2% of the EU’s gross national income, allowing it to borrow 750 billion euro on the financial markets. Part of it will be allocated towards Belgium’s Recovery and Resilience plan. 

4,5 billion euro towards the Belgian Recovery 

Belgium is one of the first countries receiving a pre-financing payment (770 milion euro) under the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF). It will help to kick-start the implementation of the crucial investment and reform measures outlined in Belgium’s recovery and resilience plan. 

Of the 750 billion euro of European NEXT Generation EU aid, some 4.5 billion euro is earmarked for Belgium. 70% of the agreed plan budget will be disbursed between 2021 and 2022. 

Funding the Belgian Recovery and Resilience Plan 

The recovery of the economy is an opportunity to accelerate the transition towards a more sustainable, smarter and more inclusive growth, while strengthening the social economic and climate resilience. 

Belgium will use its entire grants allocation under the Recovery and Resilience Fund (RRF), with a total amount of 4.5 billion euro. The National RRP is entirely funded through non-repayable grants, where 770.11 million euro in grants have been disbursed so far (non-repayable financial contributions). The six obvjectives envisaged by the Belgian NRRP should be completed by 2026. 

Belgium’s National Recovery and Resilience Plan will be structured around six strategic axes, with each ax containing specific measures and expenditures. Each of these are fitted within one or more of the main pillars the Recovery and Resilience Facility is based upon: 

Intitiatives by the various governments 

The measures included in the National RRP are part of a set of broader initiatives by the various governments of the country, which they complement, consolidate or continue. 

1.- Flemish government 

In September 2020, the Flemish Government’s “Flemish Resilience“ recovery plan was announced. The Plan, representing a sum of 4.3 billion euros and translated into 35 clusters and 180 resilience measures, is based on 7 spearheads: 

1. Making the economy and society more sustainable 
2. Investing in infrastructure 
3. Transforming Flanders digitally 
4. Investing in people and talent 
5. Strengthening the Flemish care and welfare system 
6. Managing the corona crisis and Brexit 
7. Making government more efficient 

In addition to the 4.3 billion euro in one-off recovery funds, the Flemish Government is also investing in other recovery measures such as care, employment and education. 

2.- The Walloon Government  

The goal of “Get Up Wallonia”, the Walloon recovery plan, is to put the collective intelligence of citizens and active forces to work in order to provide the region with a vision and a programme of concrete and ambitious actions. The plan, that was finalised in December 2020, will enable the region to face the socio-economic and health crisis and to improve the resilience of society and its capacity to face new challenges.  

The Walloon government pursues 51 actions and 18 measures with objectives translated into 4 missions:  

1. Manage the health emergency 
2. Reduce as much as possible the economic and social impacts of the crisis 
3. Relaunch socio-economic activity in order to produce a virtuous circle of progress 
4. Strengthen the resilience of the society and its ability to meet new challenges

 3.- The Brussels Capital Region 

In July 2020, the Brussels Government adopted a first part of its recovery plan for the Brussels Capital Region in response to the Covid-19 crisis. 

The recovery plan was divided into two phases: 

1. A set of measures with a direct impact on the individuals and businesses affected by the crisis and in need of public support as they find themselves in a precarious situation at the crucial time of the end of the first lockdown. 
2. Incentives to support the purchasing power and activity of the public and private sectors in order to maintain employment for the people of Brussels; 
   • The redeployment measures aimed at rethinking the models of urban development, production, consumption and solidarity to make them more resilient. 

4.- The German-Speaking Community 

The German-speaking Community’s contribution to the Belgian recovery plan is linked to the regional strategic development plan “Regionales EntwicklungsKonzept”. Based on this existing plan, the community looked at which additions or adjustments might be necessary today. Since June 2020, it has published monthly monitoring reports of the East Belgium economy development and to take targeted measures to mitigate the crisis. 

The interfederal structure of supervision: what’s next? 

The monitoring of the implementation of the plan’s milestones and targets takes place both at the interfederal level and at the level of each individual entity. 

The coordination of the Plan at the interfederal level is ensured by the State Secretary for Relance and Strategic Investments. The latter will remain the point of contact of the European Commission at the technical level during the implementation of the RRP. 

FI Group has 20 years of experience and wants to accompany you on the new NextGenerationEU path. Our experts are at your disposal to analyse how your project fits into the NextGenerationEU European recovery fund and to take the next steps together with you. 

Yvette Poumpalova