The European Commission preliminarily approves the disbursement to Spain of another 6,000 million Next Generation Funds

The European Commission has preliminarily approved this Friday the third payment request from Spain, a total of 6,000 million euros in transfers within the framework of the Recovery and Resilience Mechanism, the main tool of the Next Generation EU funds.

submitted its request on November 12 and after evaluating one by one the fulfillment of the milestones, reforms and investments, the Commission has given the green light.

It is the most important step, the decisive one, but not the last one.

The team of commissioners

will now forward their positive evaluation to the Council's Economic and Financial Committee (CEF), requesting an opinion that must be issued within a maximum period of one month.

With the document in hand, the Commission will make the final decision following what is known in Brussels as a comitology procedure, that is, with the assistance of committees of representatives of the Member States.

Once all this is fulfilled, and until now it has been a mere formality for Spain and the rest of the partners, the disbursement can be made effective.

The feeling in the Commission is that there will be no problems, as there have not been problems to date with anyone, so everything should move forward quickly and smoothly.

The Recovery Plan for Spain, presented in the summer of 2021 and approved shortly after,

thematic sections.

Initially, 69,500 million euros were awarded in transfers that do not compute for deficit or national debt for our country, but later it was corrected upwards to

when community technicians recalculated the impact of the 2020 recession. Our country received the first 9,000 million euros in August 2021 in what is known as pre-financing, something almost automatic to cover the investments and expenses generated by the pandemic.

On December 27 of that same year the first official disbursement arrived, of 10,000 million more.

And in June 2022 in a second disbursement of 12,000 million.

With the 6,000 million of this fourth package, the total

of all the transfers awarded.

23 MILESTONES AND 6 OBJECTIVES ACCOMPLISHED

This specific payment was associated with the fulfillment of 23 milestones and 6 objectives throughout the first half of 2022, such as the reform of the

which establishes a second chance procedure and introduces a special procedure for micro-SMEs.

The Law on the Comprehensive System of

or the Law on Measures to Prevent and

It also includes other reforms for the development and promotion of renewable energies, R+D+i projects in the automotive sector with the aim of favoring the development of components and platforms for electric vehicles and to improve the access rate. to the minimum vital income and to promote equality in sport.

To date,

.

In this phase there have been some delays, but that Brussels minimizes, since the terms are indicative.

Spain is the most advanced country (only Italy has made three requests as well) and the one that is actually helping to establish a template for the others, a

.

So the negotiations are slower, the requirements are reviewed and thresholds are being set.

Thus, for example, a few months ago the Commission expressed its discomfort because our country has

which was approved on the condition that open issues be resolved.

It was milestone 173 and it generated a lot of noise.

All the pending issues on this subject have already been resolved for the Commission, so there is no pending issue in any matter and no half-assed reforms are being carried out, except in the matter of pensions.

PENSIONS: THE KEY TO THE NEXT DISBURSEMENT

The next disbursements are, however, the ones that seem most complicated.

Minister

with community technicians for the pension reform, which is key for the next disbursement.

In the disbursement provisionally approved today, the reform of the Social Security contribution system for self-employed workers was addressed, but now four very delicate and critical elements are coming: the computation of the years of contribution, which is being negotiated with the social agents.

Changes in the maximum contribution base, which is fought every day with the Commission.

The intergenerational equity mechanism, and whether to extend it from 2032 to 2050 at least.

And, furthermore, the sustainability of the entire system.

In the evaluation of the second disbursement, Brussels warned that it had serious doubts about the impact of the reforms already legislated, such as that

and whether they would be sufficient to meet general sustainability objectives.

One of the specific milestones of the fourth disbursement is an in-depth review of that sustainability and if the community technicians consider that in the short, medium or long term the pension system cannot hold up, there could be no disbursement, at least not complete, because it is not satisfactorily resolved the issue.

The minister has offered different solutions on the income side, increasing contributions and prolonging certain factors until 2050, but there are still doubts in the institutions because the

that various analyzes estimate around 50,000 million euros, is not on track.

TAXATION AND DOUBTS

For the fifth payment, which was scheduled for 2023 but

if there is not an extraordinary acceleration, something in itself complicated in a double electoral year and with our country assuming the temporary presidency of the Council of the EU in July , there is also the tax reform, which should be completed by the end of March as well, but it is very late.

Spain is weeks behind in submitting certain questionnaires on the matter, and although it is not considered a serious problem, it does reflect that the matter is much more sensitive than what has been done up to now.

budgeted for this year of the Recovery Plan

had already been authorized.

And, between 2021 and 2022, "the central administration has assigned 19,600 million to the autonomous communities from the Next Generation Funds."

Next week, a delegation from the European Parliament, headed by the controversial German deputy

head of the European Parliament's Committee on Budgetary Control, is visiting Madrid to assess how the funds are being managed.

The deputy, known for her rants against the economic policies of southern countries.

With several political scandals behind her and little friend of transparency as far as she herself is concerned (the European Parliament lifted her immunity a few years ago so that she could be investigated

), she has been very aggressive. with Vice President

will be accompanied by senior officials of the Commission, such as

(Ecfin) and

(general secretary) who are the ones who are most familiar with the Spanish plan and compliance with the required reforms.

And who are the ones who have given the approval of all the payments until today considering that everything was in order.

They will travel to the capital as observers, to help or answer questions, but their position on the matter could not be more discrepant.

The Commission is more than satisfied with Spain, with the plan, the daily exchange and the progress.

It is the country that leads the way, the one that sets the standards and the one that is used as an example when others ask questions.

So if the German MP asks them, and she is neither an expert in the matter nor has access to information or handles the data like they are, she probably won't like the answer.

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