Italy first to request sixth NRRP tranche - Meloni

(ANSA) - ROME, JUN 24 - Premier Giorgia Meloni told a meeting of the steering group for the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NRRP) on Monday that Italy is set to become the first EU country to request its sixth tranche of funding from the NextGenerationEU programme, sources said.
    The post-COVID NRRP seeks to make the Italian economy Greener and more modern with the help of around 194 billion euros in grants and low-interest loans from the EU.
    Payment of the funding is dependent on the achievement of milestones regarding reforms and the projects themselves The government had to significantly modify its NRRP to update it to the needs of changing circumstances and avert the danger of funding not arriving because it was not possible to complete the projects by the deadline of 2026.
    "The steering group is called on today to start the procedure to request the European Commission to pay the sixth installment of the 8.5 billion euro of the NRRP," Meloni told the meeting, according to the sources.
    "It is a very important moment, because this allows us to achieve a double record and be the first nation in Europe to request payment of the sixth installment, after having also been the first to request the fifth.
    "We come to this point after some complex and very demanding work, especially in the last few days".
    A statement subsequently confirmed that Italy will request the sixth tranche after the achievement of 37 milestones linked to it. (ANSA).