Lack of clarity regarding the costs and schedule of the repayment of the NextGenerationEU funds

As part of the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF), the EU has provided Austria with EUR 3.961 billion in grants to implement measures between 2020 and 2026. These funds are debt-financed by the EU; for all EU Member States a total of EUR 750 billion was borrowed. In the report „Austrian Recovery and Resilience Plan” („Österreichischer Aufbau- und Resilienzplan“, ÖARP) published today, the auditors of the Austrian Court of Audit recommend that a binding repayment plan be agreed upon swiftly. The Ministry of Finance, the central national coordinating agency, was audited on the implementation of the Recovery and Resilience Plan, on its monitoring activities and on the account balancing with the European Commission, among other things. Room for improvement was identified in the design and implementation of the funding instruments. The audit period principally covered the years 2020 to 2024.

Debt-based raising of EU funds

In 2020, due to the economic crisis caused by COVID-19, the EU Member States agreed to establish the „NextGenerationEU“ recovery plan. This authorised the European Commission to raise up to EUR 750 billion on the capital markets. Of this amount, the Commission made available, through the instruments of the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF), EUR 672.5 billion to Member States in the form of grants (EUR 312.5 billion) and loans (EUR 360 billion).

Austria opted for the maximum possible grant of EUR 3.961 billion. It did not take out any loans.

Debt repayment: binding information missing

The ACA critically notes that when the decision to take on debt was made, no binding information was available regarding the amount of repayment costs to be borne by the EU Member States. The only provision was that repayment should be completed at the latest by 31^st December 2058.

Due to the repayment costs associated with the EU’s borrowing, that Austria, as an EU member, will share, Austria’s future payment obligations to the EU could significantly exceed the potential grants. For instance, as of 2020, the Ministry of Finance estimated Austria’s potential repayment costs at EUR 12.077 billion (at 2018 prices).

The ACA recommends that the Ministry of Finance work at the EU level towards a swift agreement of the EU Member States on a binding repayment plant for the sake of transparency.

Milestones: fundamental specifications only fleshed out during implementation

The Commission used a new model for awarding grants: payment of EU funds was tied to the attainment of milestones.

The Austrian Recovery and Resilience Plan contained 64 reform measures, for which a total of 178 milestones were defined. The measures were either investments – such as in broadband expansion – or reforms, such as the law introducing mandatory climate checks for new legislative proposals or a law introducing automatic pension splitting. For example, for broadband expansion, three milestones were defined. The final milestone stipulated that at least 80,000 households should have access to gigabit-capable networks by the end of the third quarter of 2026.

The European Commission only fleshed out the details of fundamental specifications and procedures during the implementation process. For example, it only outlined the monetary consequences of failing to fulfil a milestone in 2023. 

Some milestones were unsuitably defined

The nine ministries of the time involved in the Austrian Recovery and Resilience Plan defined some of the milestones unsuitably and, in some cases, failed to achieve them, or achieved them late. As a result, the Ministry of Finance was unable to submit payment requests to the Commission according to the schedule. This necessitated longer national pre-financing and intensive coordination processes.

National funding for fulfilling milestones

The ACA highlights that the estimated total funds needed to achieve the milestones (EUR 5.915 billion as of July 2023) are considerably higher than the maximum available EU funding (EUR 3.961 billion).

Whether the EU funds are disbursed depends solely on whether the defined milestones are fulfilled, regardless of how Member States financed the implementation of the measures. This means that additional national funds may also have to be used in order to achieve certain milestones. 

The Ministry of Finance had not developed a plan to comprehensively present the actually spent national funds needed to fulfil the milestones of the specific reform measures in the Austrian Recovery and Resilience Plan.

By September 2024, the European Commission had disbursed a total of EUR 1.192 billion to Austria for the implementation of the Recovery and Resilience Plan. By 30 June 2024, the federal government had invested approximately EUR 2.650 billion in the implementation of the plan. According to the website of the Federal Chancellery, the European Commission finally approved further payments amounting to EUR 1.6 billion in July 2025. 

Reporting to the Parliament 

Overall, the ACA calls for more transparency. For instance, there were no provisions for comprehensive financial reporting to the Parliament, such as on the necessary national funds.

The ACA recommends that the Parliament be directly and regularly informed about the progress of the plan’s implementation with respect to scope and finances. This is particularly important in light of possible cuts to EU funding if milestones are not fulfilled.

In addition, although the implementation of the Recovery and Resilience Plan required subsequent legislative acts, the federal government did not present it to the Parliament until the time of its submission to the Commission on 30 April 2021. This limited the Parliament’s transparency and flexibility in decision-making related to the plan.