The government intends to file a supplement to the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan before year’s end, aiming to activate the corresponding set of credits from the Next Generation EU mechanism for Spain.
According to sources from the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation, the government plans to mobilize a total loan of 84,000 million euros allocated to Spain.
For this purpose, the executive has been working for months on the aforementioned supplement to the Recovery Plan to be delivered this year and to mobilize the 84,000 million euro loan, in addition to a complementary transfer allocation of 7,700 million euros.
Between transfers and loans linked to European Next Generation EU funds, Spain has earmarked a total of roughly 160,000 million euros for public investments up to 2026.
With the addendum that will include these credits, the government plans to magnify the impact of the Recovery Plan from 2023, since only 70,000 million in transfers is currently reflected.
Given the prevailing geopolitical context, the investments are expected to bolster ongoing strategic projects and concentrate resources on strengthening Spain’s and Europe’s strategic autonomy in energy, agri-food, technology, and digital security.
Consequently, at the end of July, Nadia Calviño, the First Vice-President and Minister of Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation, sent letters to the heads of autonomous communities and cities to invite their participation in drafting the new regulation. The goal is to identify sectoral priorities and strategic projects to be reinforced by transfers and loans from European funds.
Contacts with political entities to prepare the agenda
Earlier this week, Calviño began discussions with parliamentary groups to prepare the annex to the Recovery Plan. The first meeting was with the PSOE spokesperson Patxi López on Monday, followed by a session with United We Can parliamentary group spokesperson Txema Guijarro on Tuesday, and a Basque regional spokesperson Aitor Esteban on Thursday. The Congress of Deputies group confirmed that further meetings with parliamentary groups will continue next week.
Progress in recovery plan
Speaking before the Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation Committee of the Congress of Deputies, Calviño noted that 66% of the Next Generation EU funds budgeted for 2022 have already been authorized and more than 53% of the amount committed has been allocated. This totals over 18,000 million euros already directed to autonomous communities to finance their projects. The regions receiving the most funding to date are Andalusia, Catalonia, Madrid, the Community of Valencia, the Canary Islands, Castilla y León, and Galicia, in that order, underscoring the breadth of the program across Spain. Source: Ministry of Economic Affairs