The investments that have been carried out in Spain thanks to the recovery plan are going in the right direction, although the European Commission considers that there are “some challenges” that must be faced. Specifically, the Executive recommends that “administrative capacity” be strengthened to adequately absorb the funds, as published yesterday in its latest report.
The European Commission considers in its latest study on the implementation of the recovery plan in the member states that the deployment of funds in Spain is “very advanced”, but “faces some challenges from now on”. Especially, because since last June, the addendum to the plan presented by the Government to have access to 95,000 million euros has been evaluated, in which a part of them (84,000 million) are loans and the rest, transfers.
This review, the institution emphasizes, means “doubling the size” of the plan. And, for this, Spain must be prepared. “It should be accompanied by a reinforced administrative capacity to ensure effective and efficient absorption of recovery and resilience funds and other available EU and national funds,” says the Executive. In this regard, the first vice president, Nadia Calviño, recently assured that she expected Brussels' assessment in “the coming weeks.”
So far Spain has requested three disbursements, which correspond to the fulfillment of 121 milestones and objectives and which has so far resulted in the disbursement of 28,000 million, of the 77,200 million available. “According to the data published by the Spanish authorities, the investments supported by the recovery plan are progressing well, and 76% of the more than 50,000 million of funds budgeted in 2021 and 2022 had already been committed by the end of 2022,” he says. the analysis of the institution.
Based on these data, for Brussels the investments deployed so far “are on the right path.” Likewise, the report points out that 20.6 billion have been transferred to the autonomous communities “to execute investments within the recovery and resilience plan.”
Among the examples highlighted by the report on the reforms carried out in Spain is the labor reform, and specifically, the Executive points out the limitation of temporary contracts, with bonuses to promote hiring. The rate of temporary workers in the private sector fell to 14.8% at the end of 2022, compared to 23.9% in 2021.
Despite the fact that the Government is still in office after the July elections, the Commissioner for Economy, Paolo Gentilioni, last week rejected any concern about the political situation in Spain and recalled that the current acting president, Pedro Sánchez, with whom met before the summer holidays, conveyed the commitment to avoid “any delay” in the deployment of funds.
Across the European Union, Brussels has disbursed €153.4 billion to a total of 21 member states. This is just 22% of the total of the 700,000 million that should be delivered until 2026, the year in which the program is scheduled to expire. However, the Commission believes the plan is “firmly on track” and, as an example, the funds have supported 1.4 million businesses.
