The Government considers that it has satisfactorily met 29 milestones and objectives in the first half of the year and has become the first country to request it
In the midst of the controversy of recent weeks around European funds and the doubts generated by compliance and their real execution in the Spanish economy, the Government confirmed this Saturday that it has requested the third payment of the ‘Next Generation’ to the European Union (EU), in total 6,000 million euros. It thus becomes the first euro country to request this third payment, as confirmed by the Ministry of Finance in a statement.
Just a month ago, information from the Bloomberg agency, citing sources from the European Commission, pointed to a possible halt in the disbursement of European funds due to the evidence that Spain had not fulfilled all the commitments derived from the Recovery Plan. Specifically, Brussels would have given a wake-up call to the Government in the absence of the creation of a mechanism to audit and control the distribution of that money. From the Ministry of Finance they indicated at that time that the fact that this auditing figure has not yet been launched does not imply that the funds have been frozen.
At that time sources from the European Commission indicated that this situation did not imply that the funds had been stopped, but that when Spain requested the third disbursement they would carry out a review of the commitments that the country acquired. Some milestones that the Government hopes to have already met in the first half of the year. Specifically, 29 milestones and objectives (23 milestones and six objectives) that give rise to the request for the new payment. These 6,000 million would be added to the 31,036 million already received: 9,036 million as pre-financing and 22,000 million corresponding to the first and second disbursements.
Now the ball is in the court of the European Commission, which will have a period of three months to carry out the analysis and verification of the documentation presented by the Government to make the disbursement. The usual procedure is two months, but for Spain – like Italy, Cyprus, Romania and Bulgaria – it has been agreed to extend the valuation period by one more month to “facilitate the work of the teams taking into account that it is Christmas time” , point out sources from the Ministry of Economic Affairs.
In case of obtaining a positive evaluation by Brussels, Spain would have already met 121 milestones and objectives out of a total of 416, which would be equivalent to almost 30% of the total milestones and objectives, according to the Treasury statement.
In it, the Government explains the “intense” process of reforms that has already begun, highlighting the entry into force of the reform of the Bankruptcy Law and the law related to the Comprehensive Vocational Training System. In addition, with regard to pensions and Social Security, the Executive highlighted that there have been very important advances such as the reform of the Social Security contribution system for self-employed workers to gradually implement a new contribution system based on real income .