Spain asks to accelerate the payments of the recovery plan and the electricity reform

The Spanish Government takes positions in view of the extraordinary European Council on February 9 and 10, a meeting in which the European response to Washington's plan to encourage the green transition, whose endowment, 369,000 million dollars, has made alarm bells on this side of the Atlantic.

Thomas Osborne
Thomas Osborne
30 January 2023 Monday 11:13
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Spain asks to accelerate the payments of the recovery plan and the electricity reform

The Spanish Government takes positions in view of the extraordinary European Council on February 9 and 10, a meeting in which the European response to Washington's plan to encourage the green transition, whose endowment, 369,000 million dollars, has made alarm bells on this side of the Atlantic.

The executive of Pedro Sánchez sent a letter to the European Commission yesterday in which he proposes to address this challenge, to which is added the not always fair competition from China, with a global approach – a pact for the green economy, he calls it – that allows align different projects underway with the aim of "preserving the leading role of the EU as a technological and commercial power in an increasingly complex and challenging world context".

Although the Spanish government supports, to a certain extent, the idea of ​​relaxing the rules on State aid and the creation of a new fund for green investments, these are not the points on which it places the most emphasis. "The reform of the European electricity market is the top priority, because it responds to the main competitive disadvantage facing the European industry", the fact that European companies pay much more for energy than their American or Asian rivals, argues the Spanish document, a non paper in the community jargon.

The second priority, according to the Spanish government, should be to help member states spend the money allocated to them in the national recovery plans launched in the wake of the pandemic and financed by the Next Generation fund. "The rules on State aid should offer an accelerated procedure for strategic projects", the famous Perte, in key sectors such as "clean energy, semiconductors, electric vehicles or critical technologies". The excess requirements, he warns, is slowing down its deployment.

The document gives as an example the case of the Perte of the electric car, of which only 800 of the 3,000 million it has been able to disburse. To expedite the projects, the Government asks to raise the thresholds from which the subsidy must be notified to the EC or that those that are linked to recovery plans do not require previous or subsequent studies.

Madrid asks the European Commission that the revision of the State aid rules on which it is currently working "must avoid distortions in the internal market that increase imbalances", a veiled allusion to the fear of many countries that Germany and France will risk subsidies to their companies at a level not accessible to others.

The idea of ​​offsetting this risk with the creation of a new sovereignty fund to finance green investments is not to the taste of many either. In addition to the refusal of partners such as the Netherlands ("fresh money is not needed," said its prime minister, Mark Rutte, this week to La Vanguardia) is added the one expressed yesterday in another letter by seven countries (Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Austria, Ireland, Estonia and Slovakia) to oppose the idea of ​​launching a new joint debt issue to finance the new instrument. The priority, they reply, must be to spend the money that remains in the system. The European Commission will present a first draft of its proposals next week.