Treasury will create a large census of beneficiaries of European aid | Economy

by time news

The Government took another step yesterday in the deployment of the execution scheme of the 140,000 million euros in European funds that will cover the investments and reforms included in the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan. Specifically, the Official State Gazette collected two orders issued by the Ministry of Finance and Public Administration that make up the information and management system for community aid. The text establishes the control mechanisms over the beneficiaries, project monitoring, fraud prevention and investment diversions.

One of the main novelties of these ministerial orders is that it establishes the creation of a macro census of beneficiaries, contractors and subcontractors by the Treasury. Specifically, the State Tax Administration Agency, the regional and Canarian authorities, as well as the General Intervention of the State Administration will have a database in which “at least” those recipients of community funds from certain “minimum standard of economic significance”. In the first place will appear those mercantile companies, business groups, cooperatives or natural persons with economic activity whose annual turnover –or volume of operations subject to indirect taxes– exceeds two million euros. The holders of shares of more than 25% of the share capital or equity funds of said companies will also appear. Third, the Treasury will have control over natural or legal persons who are beneficiaries of aid for more than 7,000 euros.

The framework approved by the Treasury also includes a series of measures to prevent, detect and correct fraud, corruption and conflict of interest. Among them, the obligation imposed on the decision-making or executing entities of the projects to approve an anti-fraud plan within a period of 90 days, counting from the publication of the mandate yesterday in the BOE, “or in its case, since the has knowledge of the participation in the execution” of the recovery plan. The detection of a possible fraud, or the well-founded suspicion of its existence, obliges the subscribing entities of these protocols to immediately suspend the project and notify the authorities. A review process of all the activities that may have been related to the irregularity will then begin.

On the other hand, the Treasury order incorporates a series of safeguards to ensure compliance with the investment objectives set by the European Union, under which Spain has committed to allocate 39.7% of the funds received to the transition ecological and 28.2% to digital transformation. To do this, the recovery plan evaluation system will incorporate data from each project to ensure that these thresholds are respected. If “lower than expected values” are observed or there is a risk of “a negative impact on the global objective”, the authorities will request a report on the deviation and will promote the necessary “corrective measures” to guarantee the agreed percentages.

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