The Diplomat
Spain yesterday received the first €9 billion of the recovery plan approved by the European Union, representing 13% of the nearly €70 billion requested by Pedro Sánchez’s government in the form of a non-refundable transfer.
The President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen announced on her Twitter account the transfer made by Brussels to our country, stating: “The disbursement of NextGeneration EU funds today launches Spain’s Recovery and Resilience Plan. This plan will be a crucial boost to make the Green Pact a reality, digitise the economy and make Spain more resilient than ever”.
On the same social network, Sánchez welcomed the European contribution and said: “We continue to move towards a greener, digital, feminist and cohesive country, setting in motion the major transformations that our economy needs”.
Also from Cadiz, the First Vice-President of the Government and Minister for Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation, Nadia Calviño, welcomed the news to the press, which she described as “very important and positive”, adding that it “confirms the support of the European Commission” for the government’s economic programme.
According to Calviño, the Recovery Plan will boost the modernisation of the economy and contribute “to overcoming the structural deficiencies” that Spain has been carrying over from the previous crisis, that of 2008, reports Europa Press.
The Vice-President recalled that this first payment of 9,000 million is equivalent to 13% of the total transfers that Spain will receive (70,000 million), to which another 70,000 million will be added until 2026. “This is unprecedented European support, which is equivalent to the transfers we have received from structural funds in the last 30 years,” he said.
Although Spain has been allocated some 140 billion in transfers and credits, the government has so far only requested the non-refundable part.
Calviño stressed that Spain is emerging from the crisis “very differently” from the previous one, with “intense economic growth” that is translating into strong job creation, as demonstrated, she said, by the data published yesterday by the Ministry of Social Security, which indicate that the level of pre-pandemic employment will be recovered by the end of August.
He also referred to the publication by the Bank of Spain of the public debt figure for June, which has fallen to 122% of GDP, thanks, he said, to this “intense” economic growth.
With this “positive news” in hand, Calviño stated that efforts must be concentrated on the Recovery Plan. “We have not been standing still waiting for those 9 billion. We have been preparing this Plan for a year now and we have already begun to deploy investments”, she assured.
In this sense, she stated that more than 7 billion euros have already been distributed among the autonomous communities so that they can begin to undertake the investments of the Recovery Plan and that tenders have already been launched for the major railway works.
The Vice-President reiterated that the Plan’s investments “will accelerate” in the second half of the year and will be concentrated above all in the 2022-2023 period, when 80% of the planned transfers will be received.
