The European Commission warned Spain that it may encounter “challenges” as it progresses in the execution of the recovery plan, especially once it can receive the 84,000 million in credits, which is why it recommended strengthening the “administrative capacity” to absorb all funds, including cohesion funds. This is stated in the report on the implementation of the recovery plan that the Community Executive published this Tuesday and which includes brief chapters by country, just at the moment in which the institution is evaluating the present addendum planned by the Government on June 6. . to have access to the loans part.
“The execution of Spain’s recovery plan has made progress so far, but it faces some challenges going forward,” says the text, in which Brussels also points out that the country is one of the “most advanced”, but warns at the same time that the revision of the plan means doubling its size.
“This should be accompanied by a strengthened administrative capacity sufficient to ensure effective and efficient absorption of recovery and resilience funds and other available EU and national funds,” suggests the European Commission. So far, Spain has received 37,000 million from the recovery plan, of which 9,000 are part of the advance and another 28,000 correspond to the three disbursements that were linked to the fulfillment of 121 reforms or investments.
Brussels highlights in the document that, based on the data provided by the Spanish authorities, the investments deployed thanks to the recovery funds “are on the right path”, since 76% of the more than 50,000 million of the financing n budgeted for 2021 and 2022 “were committed to the end of 2022.”
On the other hand, the report from the Community Executive recalls that 20.6 billion have been transferred to the autonomous communities “to execute investments within the recovery and resilience plan.” The European Commission is currently evaluating the agenda of the Spanish plan, which once approved would give Spain access to the 84 billion allocated in the form of credits and another 10 billion in transfers, which would be added to the 69.5 billion already available.
IN THIS SENSE, the Acting First Vice President of the Government, Nadia Calviño, reiterated that the Government is “Finishing the technical work with the Europe Commission A so that the process of approving the addendum can be launched as soon as possible” and that she hopes that The approval will occur “in the coming weeks”, so that it can also request the fourth payment of 10,000 million euros “between now and the end of the year.”
In statements to the press before presenting the priorities of the European presidency in the Industry committee of the European Parliament, he also assured that Spain has “been strengthening public management mechanisms”, introducing robotic mechanisms to automate processes and reduce the bureaucratic burden of companies, with a technical office to support city councils or with digitalization programs between autonomous communities, among other measures.
“We will continue to strengthen the administrative capacity of our country (…) so that as a result of European funds we also have a more efficient administration,” he said. In the EU as a whole, the Community Executive has so far disbursed 153,400 million euros to 21 member states, which represents only 22% of the total of 707,000 million euros that should be delivered to the countries in 2026 before the program is launched. is now approaching its equator.
Although 800,000 million were originally made available to the Twenty-seven, the countries did not request all the loans, only 75% of them, so the final disbursements and, consequently, the financing needs in the markets, will be lower. initially planned.
Brussels, however, defends that the deployment of the fund is “firmly underway” and, as an example, points out that the funds have provided support to 1.4 million companies, have allowed 6 million people to receive education and training; and saved 22 million megawatts in energy thanks to the measures included in the countries’ recovery plans.
