The Diplomat
The European Commission announced yesterday a slight improvement in the economic forecasts for Spain, coinciding with the visit to Brussels of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, and a day after a delegation of PP mayors tried to get the backing of the EU executive to their complaints against the use of European funds by the Government.
The winter 2022 economic forecasts indicate that, after a remarkable 5.3% expansion in 2021, the EU economy will grow by 4.0% in 2022 and 2.8% in 2023. Growth in the euro area is also forecast to stand at 4.0 % in 2022 and to moderate to 2.7 % in 2023. The EU as a whole reached its pre-pandemic GDP level in the third quarter of 2021 and all Member States are expected to have surpassed that milestone by the end of 2022.
As for Spain, “after 5.0% growth in 2021, real GDP is expected to grow by 5.6% in 2022 and 4.4% in 2023,” Economy Commissioner Paolo Gentiloni told a press conference. This figure represents a slight uptick of 0.1 percentage points compared to the last estimate last November. “The revival in tourism will boost industry and help the labor market, while the Recovery and Resilience Plan is expected to stimulate public and private investment over the forecast horizon,” he added.
“The EU economy has regained the ground it lost in the worst moments of the crisis thanks to successful vaccination campaigns and coordinated economic policy support,” said Executive Vice President responsible for the Economy at the Service of the People Valdis Dombrovskis. “The fundamentals of the EU remain sound and will receive an even stronger boost as countries start to fully implement their recovery and resilience plans,” he added.
Precisely, Valdis Dombrovskis was one of the two European Commissioners with whom Albares met yesterday at the Berlaymont Building, the Commission’s headquarters. The other was the Vice-President and Commissioner for the Protection of the European Way of Life, Margaritis Schinas, with whom he discussed migration and asylum. “I welcome Spain’s constructive spirit in moving towards an agreement. Spain can play a key role in its final design. We will continue to work together to achieve it,” Schinas stated via Twitter.
Margaritis Schinas himself received this past Wednesday a delegation of PP mayors, including the head of Madrid City Council, José Luis Martínez-Almeida, who traveled to Brussels to denounce the “arbitrary” distribution of European recovery funds in Spain and the lack of transparency by the Government in the management of this aid. Schinas does not have any powers in relation to the recovery fund. Dombrovskis does, but the PP delegation did not meet with him.
Finally, the PP delegation returned to Spain without achieving its aims, especially after Paolo Gentiloni warned the same Wednesday that Brussels is not in a position to extend the control of the use of the funds “beyond” what is stipulated in the conditions of the plan. “Regarding the distribution of resources between regions and from the central government to the regions, we are aware of the discussion, but we are not in a position to extend our role and our control beyond what is in the approved national recovery plan, its implementation, and that is what we are observing and controlling here in Brussels,” the commissioner declared.
