Preliminary assessment of the first payment request of Romania

    instrument will be intermediated by eligible financial intermediaries (Annex 4, Part II, Sections
    10 and 10a). Finally, eligibility criteria (additional to the application of the DNSH principle) are
    mentioned in Annex 4, Part II, Sections 6 and 7.
   In line with the general approach taken under InvestEU, the Contribution Agreement defers the
    definition of details that determines the alignment between Member State Compartment and
    EU Compartment to a Guarantee Agreement between the EIF and the Commission. The
    Guarantee Agreement is the fundamental document that allows for the actual implementation
    of the portfolio guarantee and is currently being negotiated by the European Commission and
    the EIF.
   In the summary document duly justifying the achievement of the milestone, Romania has
    requested that the Climate Action Portfolio Guarantee be fully aligned with the corresponding
    InvestEU EU-Compartment instrument with regard to specific goals and energy efficiency

    ambitions, structure and eligibility criteria – along with the general guidelines defined by the
    Contribution Agreement and the provisions in the CID Annex.
   The target of the instruments are individuals and SMEs as defined in the Annex to Commission
    Recommendation 2003/361/EC concerning the definition of micro, small and medium-sized
    enterprises – that is, self-employed persons or enterprises which employ fewer than 250
    persons and which have an annual turnover not exceeding EUR 50 million, and/or an annual
    balance sheet total not exceeding EUR 43 million. In line with the milestone description, the
    financial instrument is expected to support at least 250 beneficiaries – as stated in a dedicated
    note prepared by the implementing partner and in the summary document. The guarantee
    agreement will provide further and more refined detail about the final targeted companies
    (Annex 4, Part I, Sections 6 and 7).
   The structure of the instrument enables to leverage private funds, as the minimum leverage of

    the financial product is set at four (clause 11.2). This is in line with the CID.
   The Contribution Agreement requires the Guarantee Agreement to include provisions ensuring
    compliance of the financial instrument and its supported transactions with the “Do no
    significant harm” Technical Guidance (2021/C58/01). In particular, the Guarantee Agreement
    sets out an obligation for the implementing partner to use InvestEU sustainability proofing and
    to comply with an exclusion list - as outlined in the CID Annex [COM(2021)608 final and
    ST12319/21 ADD 1]. In accordance with the description of the milestone, the Contribution
    Agreement ensures that the Guarantee Agreement shall exclude the following list of activities
    and assts from eligibility (Clause 4.7):
         a. activities and assets related to fossil fuels, including downstream use (with the related
             exception concerning projects in power and/or heat generation, as well as related
             transmission and distribution infrastructure, using natural gas)

         b. activities and assets under the EU Emission Trading System (ETS) achieving projected
             greenhouse gas emissions that are not lower than the relevant benchmarks (with
             further requirements concerning supported activities achieving projected greenhouse
             gas emissions that are not significantly lower than the relevant benchmarks).
   The sub-investment is in line with Commission’s Guidance Note of 22 January 2021 (SWD(2021)
    12 final) as the Contribution Agreement: i) ensures the implementation of the contribution via
    the guarantee agreement shall respect the requirements of the RRF Regulation (Clause 7.4); and
    that ii) it contains all the relevant information regarding the participation of Romania in the
    InvestEU Programme that has been included in the national recovery and resilience plan has
    been transposed into the Contribution Agreement: the policy objectives of the measure (Clause
    11); the State aid dimension (Clause 3.5); the contribution to the Invest EU provisioning (Clause

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