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1. The Commission shall assess the recovery and resilience plan or, where applicable, the update to that plan submitted by the Member State in accordance with Article 18(1) or 18(2) within two months of the official submission, and make a proposal for a Council implementing decision in accordance with Article 20(1). When carrying out that assessment, the Commission shall act in close cooperation with the Member State concerned. The Commission may make observations or seek additional information. The Member State concerned shall provide the requested additional information and may revise the recovery and resilience plan if needed, including after the official submission of the recovery and resilience plan. The Member State concerned and the Commission may agree to extend the deadline for assessment by a reasonable period if necessary.

2. When assessing the recovery and resilience plan and in the determination of the amount to be allocated to the Member State concerned, the Commission shall take into account the analytical information on the Member State concerned available in the context of the European Semester as well as the justification and the elements provided by that Member State, as referred to in Article 18(4), as well as any other relevant information such as, in particular, the information contained in the National Reform Programme and the National Energy and Climate Plan of that Member State, in the territorial just transition plans under the Just Transition Fund Regulation, in the Youth Guarantee implementation plans and, if relevant, information from technical support received via the Technical Support Instrument.

3. The Commission shall assess the relevance, effectiveness, efficiency and coherence of the recovery and resilience plan and, for that purpose, shall take into account the following criteria which it shall apply in accordance with Annex V: Relevance:

(a) whether the recovery and resilience plan represents a comprehensive and adequately balanced response to the economic and social situation, thereby contributing appropriately to all six pillars referred to in Article 3, taking the specific challenges and the financial allocation of the Member State concerned into account;

(b) whether the recovery and resilience plan is expected to contribute to effectively addressing all or a significant subset of challenges identified in the relevant country-specific recommendations, including fiscal aspects thereof and recommendations made pursuant to Article 6 of Regulation (EU) No 1176/2011 where appropriate, addressed to the Member State concerned or challenges identified in other relevant documents officially adopted by the Commission in the context of the European Semester;

(c) whether the recovery and resilience plan is expected to effectively contribute to strengthening the growth potential, job creation, and economic, social and institutional resilience of the Member State, contributing to the implementation of the European Pillar of Social Rights, including through the promotion of policies for children and the youth, and to mitigating the economic and social impact of the COVID-19 crisis, thereby enhancing the economic, social and territorial cohesion and convergence within the Union;

(d) whether the recovery and resilience plan is expected to ensure that no measure for the implementation of reforms and investment projects included in the recovery and resilience plan does significant harm to environmental objectives within the meaning of Article 17 of Regulation (EU) 2020/852 (the principle of ‘do no significant harm’); the Commission shall provide technical guidance to the Member States to that effect;

(da) whether the REPowerEU chapter contains reforms and investments referred to in Article 21c that contribute effectively to energy security, the diversification of the Union’s energy supply, an increase in the uptake of renewables and energy efficiency, an increase of energy storage capacities or the necessary reduction of dependence on fossil fuels before 2030;

(db) whether the REPowerEU chapter contains reforms and investments referred to in Article 21c which are expected to have a cross-border or multi-country dimension or effect;

(e) whether the recovery and resilience plan contains measures that effectively contribute to the green transition, including biodiversity, or to addressing the challenges resulting therefrom, whether they account for an amount which represents at least 37 % of the recovery and resilience plan’s total allocation and whether such measures in the REPowerEU chapter account for an amount which represents at least 37 % of the total estimated costs of the measures included in that chapter, based on the methodology for climate tracking set out in Annex VI; that methodology shall be used accordingly for measures that cannot be directly assigned to an intervention field listed in Annex VI; the coefficients for support for the climate objectives may be increased up to a total amount of 3 % of the allocation of the recovery and resilience plan for individual investments to take account of accompanying reform measures that credibly increase their impact on the climate objectives, subject to the agreement of the Commission;

(f) whether the recovery and resilience plan contains measures that effectively contribute to the digital transition or to addressing the challenges resulting therefrom, and whether they account for an amount which represents at least 20 % of the recovery and resilience plan’s total allocation, based on the methodology for digital tagging set out in Annex VII; that methodology shall be used accordingly for measures that cannot be directly assigned to an intervention field listed in Annex VII; the coefficients for support for the digital objectives may be increased for individual investments to take account of accompanying reform measures that increase their impact on the digital objectives; Effectiveness:

(g) whether the recovery and resilience plan is expected to have a lasting impact on the Member State concerned;

(h) whether the arrangements proposed by the Member States concerned are expected to ensure an effective monitoring and implementation of the recovery and resilience plan, including the envisaged timetable, milestones and targets, and the related indicators; Efficiency:

(i) whether the justification provided by the Member State on the amount of the estimated total costs of the recovery and resilience plan is reasonable and plausible and is in line with the principle of cost efficiency and is commensurate to the expected national economic and social impact;

(j) whether the arrangements proposed by the Member State concerned are expected to prevent, detect and correct corruption, fraud and conflicts of interests when using the funds provided under the Facility, including the arrangements that aim to avoid double funding from the Facility and other Union programmes; Coherence:

(k) whether the recovery and resilience plan contains measures for the implementation of reforms and public investment projects that represent coherent actions.

4. Where the Member State concerned has requested a loan as referred to in Article 14, the Commission shall assess whether the request for a loan fulfils the criteria set out in Article 15(1), and in particular whether the additional reforms and investments in respect of which that request was made, fulfil the assessment criteria of paragraph 3.

5. Where the Commission gives a negative assessment to a recovery and resilience plan, it shall communicate a duly justified assessment within the deadline set out in paragraph 1.

6. For the purpose of the assessment of the recovery and resilience plans submitted by Member States, the Commission may be assisted by experts.