EU governments signed off on the payment after experts on the bloc's Economic and Financial Committee gave their final approval, clearing the way for the European Commission to transfer the funds. Because the Commission must first borrow the money on financial markets under the EU's Recovery Fund structure, the transfer is expected within the month, according to Polish Radio’s Brussels correspondent Beata Płomecka.
The approval follows a preliminary green light from Brussels roughly a month earlier, granted after Poland met a series of reform and investment targets tied to the funding.
Chief among them was the completion of the "Laptop for Teachers" program, which provided vouchers for laptop purchases to more than 500,000 teachers and supplied laptops and tablets to thousands of primary and secondary schools nationwide.
Poland also satisfied other conditions linked to the disbursement, including the delivery of 88 new trams to Wrocław, Poznań and Kraków, and the passage of amendments to national energy law governing connections to the power grid across the country.
(jh)
Source: Polish Radio