G. Skaistė: EC is not quite correct in deciding the allocation of RRF funds to Lithuania Business

She said this following the Commission accepted a positive partial assessment on Monday and allowed Lithuania to use another 8.7 million. euros from the 26 million frozen last year. of RRF subsidy funds. However, Brussels has left 8.7 million still frozen due to not having fully achieved the indicator related to tax benefits. EUR support.

“In our opinion, the European Commission does not apply the RRF regulation correctly. Our commitment plan was approved at the same time. Meanwhile, the evaluation methodology, which assesses how the achievements named in the plan were achieved, was unilaterally approved by the European Commission much later,” G. Skaistė told Žinių radio on Thursday.

“To give a simple example, a person buys an economy class car, and later finds out that its price is like that of a sports car and apparently has no room to refuse that purchase,” added the finance minister.

The EC assessed on Monday that Lithuania has not fully achieved the indicator related to tax benefits.

According to G. Skaistė, tax policy is “a matter of national discretion”, and the Commission has decided that the part of the tax package related to the waiver of benefits “should be much more ambitious”.

“No Euro-bureaucrats should take a backseat to what is national discretion and national choice.” (…) If Eurobureaucrats want something more, in my opinion, they should not give themselves a mandate through various methodologies”, said G. Skaistė.

The Ministry of Finance announced on Monday that it is considering applying to the General Court of the European Union (EU) regarding the actions of the EC in deciding on the “frozen” RRF funds allocated to Lithuania.

Last May, the EC paid Lithuania the first payment from the RRF – 542.3 million. euros, this money was paid out for the first 30 indicators. At that time, 26 million EUR support was then temporarily withheld for two unfulfilled indicators, but in December the EC allowed Lithuania to use almost EUR 9 million. euros from this amount.

Last October, the EC approved an updated 3.85 billion a package of RRF funds allocated to Lithuania worth EUR. It will consist of 2.3 billion euros of European grants and 1.55 billion euro loans.