EU Recovery Plan
Background
Due to the worldwide economic crisis, the European Commission (EC) proposed an EU Economic Recovery Plan in November 2008, which was endorsed by the European Council in December 2008. As part of the implementation of this Recovery Plan, in January 2009 the EC proposed to boost investments in the key energy infrastructure projects. The EU Energy Recovery Plan was approved and published in the Official Journal of the EU on 31 July 2009 (Regulation (EC) 663/2009).
A total of 3.980 billion € was allocated from unspent EU budget to energy-related projects focused on electricity and gas infrastructures (2.365 billion €), Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) (1.050 billion €) and offshore wind (565 million €). The list of eligible projects is included in Annex I to the Regulation.
The Plan did not foresee any funds for Photovoltaic (PV) projects. However, in May 2010 the EC proposed to amend the current Recovery Plan in order to utilise uncommitted funds at the end of 2010 for projects in the areas of energy efficiency and energy from renewable sources. An agreement between the Council of Ministers and the European Parliament on the EC proposal was reached in December 2010.
At the end of 2010, approximately 146 million € had not been used.
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