Green light to the changes introduced by the Central Government in the Recovery and Resilience Plan of Spain. The European Commission yesterday approved the addendum to the original program sent by Moncloa to Brussels in June, a decision that opens the door to the delivery of more than 93.5 billion euros, most of it in the form of credits you all
The regulation of the Next Generation EU funds allowed member states, so its execution advanced, to request changes in the plans agreed with the Community Executive when the plans were designed in 2021 provided that it was justified by “objective circumstances”. The impact of the war in Ukraine on energy prices has been the main variable assessed by Brussels to accept changes in 52 milestones or reforms that were included in the initial version of the plan.
So, as La Vanguardia advanced, Brussels has agreed, for example, to replace the promise to implement tolls on state-owned motorways with a plan to support the transport of goods by rail. This measure “has been replaced by provisions that promote the use of rail transport of goods to reduce greenhouse gas emissions”, explained yesterday the spokeswoman for the Economy of the Community Executive, Veerle Nuyts, who recalled that the upcoming entry into force of a reform of the emissions trading system that already provides for taxing road transport has also been assessed.
Although the revision of the addendum to the Spanish Recovery Plan still needs to be ratified by Ecofin (Council of Economy Ministers of the EU), the Spanish Government should not wait for this procedure to be completed by itself request the disbursement of the fourth tranche of aid from the Next Generation EU funds reserved for Spain, community sources explain. These disbursements are linked to one of the most delicate political decisions of the last legislature, the pension reform. Although Brussels has not expressed itself on this issue, the Spanish Government has worked in contact with Community technicians and trusts that the incorporated sustainability criteria will satisfy the Commission.
The decision adopted yesterday unlocks access to more than 10.3 billion euros in lost funds. On the one hand, in an item of 7,700 million euros (the amount resulting from revising the figures of the initial plan with the real figure of GDP fall, which was greater than expected due to the pandemic) and, of the another, of around 2,644 million euros from RePowerEU (the program activated to reduce dependence on fossil fuels).
At the time, unlike for example Italy, the other major beneficiary of the Next Generation EU funds, Spain decided to concentrate the disbursements of the subsidies in the first years and leave for a second phase the request for soft loans . This moment has arrived and already at the end of last year the Spanish Government announced that it would resort to the credits provided for in the European program to access financing under more advantageous conditions than those currently offered by the markets. Of the 84,000 million euros available, Madrid announced in December that it would request 83,500 million.
These amounts, added to the 69,500 million already approved in 2021, raise the total of aid to Spain in exchange for compliance with the Recovery Plan to 163,000 million euros (around 80,000 in lost aid and 83,000 in loans) . So far, it is the only member state that, in addition to having requested the disbursement of the first three tranches of aid, has already collected the aid after Brussels validated compliance with the agreed measures. However, the decision to use the opportunity to revise the plan, as other countries have done, has resulted in a five-month delay in the process, and the deadline for executing the funds expires in August 2026, so Brussels has recommended the central government to strengthen its administrative capacity to speed up disbursements.