"We have very limited information regarding the final execution of European funds, since most of the entities and administrations in charge of it do not publish budget execution reports with the same urgency and detail as the AGE." It is the main conclusion of a report that the Foundation for Studies on Applied Economics (Fedea) published today and in which it analyzes the monitoring of investments in the Spanish Recovery Plan. The document, signed by Ángel de la Fuente, concludes that there is a lack of public information and transparency about the awards.
Fedea points out, first of all, that the Ministry of Finance does not offer information on community aid in the homogenized data on budget execution and settlement of the autonomous communities. Only some regional governments offer official data. “The situation seems to be even worse in the case of the public entities that manage a good part of the Recovery Plan, such as the IDAE (Institute for Energy Diversification and Saving) and Red.es”, since “both entities publish Only, with an annual frequency and a lag of around two years, very aggregated accounts that do not allow for drawing precise conclusions about the projects in progress.
De la Fuente proposes that to solve this gap, the General State Intervention, the IGAE, “should systematize and publish the existing information on the definitive execution of European funds by all the administrations involved and the rest of the public entities involved, including in its reports the payments made in years subsequent to those of origin of the recognized obligations, as well as physical indicators that help to get an idea of the pace of progress and results of the main lines of action.
The conclusion of the Fedea economist is that “despite the more than two years that have passed since the Plan was launched, almost no progress has been made in this direction.”
Another of the problems that Fedea sees in the Recovery Plan underway is that only a third of the budgeted funds, 59,000 million, has been paid. That is, the money does not reach its final recipients quickly. This is how Ángel de la Fuente explains it: “If we stick to the official execution data of the General State Administration, the balance [of committed execution] is not bad: the bulk of the expenditure budgeted as part of the Recovery Plan (83 % in 2021 and 69% in 2022) has been executed within the year”; However, “around a third of the recognized obligations have not yet been disbursed.”
It is important to differentiate between the provisional execution of European funds and their definitive execution or final expenditure. For the Government, the decisive step is the first, when the expense is committed, since the beneficiary projects already know that they will receive the aid.
The delay in the payments of the funds is due to the fact that the “resources have begun the journey towards their final destination, which may involve several transfers between administrations or public entities until they reach the one that, ultimately, will be in charge of managing the funds.” corresponding calls or tenders,” says Fedea.
The 59 billion European funds activated in “budgeted actions” represent 85% of the originally planned expenditure. Almost two thirds of this amount, 37,627 million, correspond to direct calls and tenders from the General Administration, and just over 21,000 million have been transfers to autonomous communities. On the other hand, the actions implemented by the autonomies charged to these transfers amount to just over 8.6 billion, according to Fedea calculations.
The economic studies service also warns of a decrease in the number of awards this year. “The average pace observed until the start of the Plan's actions would be consistent with the complete implementation of its first phase (without the Addendum) in 2023, in accordance with the initially planned schedule. Although a clear slowdown has been detected in the implementation of new actions so far this year that could compromise the final objective.
