Came the day. The European Parliament’s Budgetary Control Committee lands this Monday in Madrid and, until next Wednesday, will carry out an agenda full of interviews and meetings to scrutinize the use of Next Generation European funds. Among the most important meetings, the one that will take place this afternoon with the economic vice president, Nadia Calviño, after the friction that took place just a few days ago with Monika Hohlmeier herself, president of that commission.
Specifically, the German parliamentarian disgraced the Minister of Economic Affairs for the dissemination to the media of a letter sent by Calviño herself to Brussels in which the main investments of the plan were reviewed and the conclusions of the mission were anticipated even before to have started
“It is surprising that the letter was released to the press very soon after I received it and before the members of the Commission and myself had the opportunity to take good note of its content,” said the MEP in a critique. letter sent last Wednesday and to which Europa Press had access.
Despite this climate of tension, the Government has a great asset in its favor to face this examination in Brussels. And it is that the Commission announced last minute on Friday its decision to approve the third disbursement of European funds, endowed with 6,000 million euros. In other words, with this decision, they already confirm that Spain is complying with the milestones and commitments of the Recovery Plan.
However, monitoring this fact on the ground – as well as the management, auditing and control systems – is key for Hohlmeier and the ‘men in black’ who accompany her on the mission. Especially when faced with doubts about the rate of execution of the funds. The Government itself has begun to recognize a certain slowdown in the arrival of this money to the real economy, asking the autonomous communities to be more agile in deploying the funds.
Specifically, after the last meeting of the Sectoral Conference held at the end of January, the Ministry of Economy calculated that the autonomies had already launched calls for 50% of the funds transferred. That is, about 20,600 million euros. But only about 4,000 million have been resolved, less than 20% of that total.
Faced with these data, the General State Administration claimed then to have resolved more than 80% of its calls, which corresponds to an investment of some 19,200 million euros.
Against this backdrop, Calviño indicated this Monday that he is facing the visit with an “absolutely constructive” attitude. “We are being the guinea pigs. Everything that is put to the test in Spain is then applied to the rest of the countries. And that means that we receive this mission from the European Parliament and that the Commission has been particularly demanding with all control issues. But it is our interest that these funds are used to the maximum”, he indicated.
Surveillance day
In this scenario, the mission that will arrive in Spain this Monday will be made up of 10 MEPs, members of various political groups, six of whom are attached to the European Parliament’s Committee on Budgetary Control, which after its return to Brussels will prepare a report on the matter. .
Specifically, traveling with Hohlmeier is a group of MEPs, mostly Spanish, such as Isabel Benjumea (PP), Isabel García Muñoz and Eider Gardiazabal (PSOE), Eva María Poptcheva and Susana Solís (Cs), Ernest Urtasun (En Comú Podem ) and Jorge Buxadé (Vox). Calviño indicated this Monday that “it is true that the important participation of Spanish MEPs from PP and Vox has attracted a bit of attention”, but he stressed that the interest of the Government “is to have a visit that is as objective and technical as possible.”
In addition to the meeting with Calviño, meetings are also scheduled with the Minister of Finance and Public Function, María Jesús Montero, and the Minister of Inclusion, Social Security and Migration, José Luis Escrivá, as well as with regional councilors of Castilla-La Mancha, Madrid , Extremadura, Andalusia and Aragon. They will also meet with representatives of employers and unions, the digital industry, consultancy and investigative journalists.
At the proposal of the Spanish Government, they will also visit a project financed by the National Recovery Plan, the National Center for Neurotechnology.
The Spanish Executive faces this examination with the added tension of convincing the Commission that the milestones will continue to be met to the letter in order to receive the next payment (the fourth). And it is that among the requirements to be met for this would be the approval of the second leg of the reform of the pension system. In addition, the Executive expects to approve the draft addendum to the Recovery Plan in March, with which the funds assigned to Spain in the form of loans (not direct aid) would be requested. This includes the loans themselves (84,000 million), as well as additional transfers to boost the strategic economy (7,700 million), as well as those framed in the RePowerEU plan (2,600 million).