Malta will be receiving around €60 million less from European funds which are set to help member states recover from the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Parliamentary Secretary for EU Funds Chris Bonett told a press conference on Wednesday that this is because the country achieved positive economic growth during the last year. 

This follows an economic assessment by the European Commission in June, leading to the amount of funds allocated to Malta to be revised. Malta was initially set to receive a whopping €316 million through the ‘Next Generation EU Funding Program.’ 

Bonett explained how Malta had the third largest economic growth in the EU, and in the first quarter of this year, we achieved the exceptional growth rate of 7.6%. 

Following the announcement, he went on to assure that none of the projects drawn up in Malta’s recovery plan will be discarded and that the government was current looking into alternative means of funding for these projects. 

With the government not intending of setting aside any of the projects, they will be implemented through the €2.2 billion which will be set in motion through the new funding framework, he explained. 

The recovery and resilience plan by Malta was approved by the EU Council of Ministers for Economic and Financial Affairs in October last year. 17 investment projects and 30 reforms make up the plan and concern everything from setting up a carbon-neutral school and a new ITS campus. 

€41 million in pre-financing is going towards 17 reform and two investment milestones achieved last year. Malta’s government is allegedly currently preparing to submit a first payment request of around €60 million in the coming weeks. 

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