Daniel Viaña Madrid

Madrid

Updated Thursday, February 1, 2024-12:45

The former vice president of the Government, Nadia Calviño, returned to Madrid this Thursday to present the activity in Spain of the European Investment Bank (EIB), which she now presides over. And although he did not want to assess the political situation in Spain and the complications faced by the Government of which he was a part after Junts' rejection of the Amnesty Law, he did want to

put some pressure

on both the Catalan independence party and the rest of the partners. by Pedro Sánchez.

"

The Budgets are necessary to mobilize European funds

," said Calviño. "They are the instrument to channel all European funds. Between 2021 and 2023 they have served to channel the transfers of European funds and now that we enter the second phase, the budgets determine the framework to be able to deploy these loans," he stressed.

The former Minister of Economy added that the first tranche of the

Autonomous Resilience Fund

will be 3,600 million, which will obviously benefit the communities and, therefore, also Catalonia, and that the EIB has launched "all the procedures necessary".

The Budgets, in reality, are not entirely essential for this process since European funds are released more by the fulfillment or not of the milestones than by the approval of the accounts themselves. It is true that the PGE helps the use and application of funds, but they are not essential.

However, Calviño wanted to convey that message of need at a time when the Sánchez Government

is by no means guaranteed

that the Budgets will go ahead. Until the amnesty vote, the Treasury believed that the approval of the accounts was very feasible. Now they continue to affirm it or, rather, they continue to trust that it will occur. But the context has changed substantially.

Budgets "as soon as possible"

Calviño's words came after the Government spokesperson, Pilar Alegría, stated that the Executive maintains its intention to approve the Budgets

this quarter

. "As soon as possible," she stated in an interview on RNE, in which she also expressed confidence that the legislature will be exhausted.

"We have many plans ahead of us to face

in these three and a half years that we have left

," he stated. "Until now we have been able to take steps in that direction with a dialogue that has allowed us to approve very important laws for citizens and that will, of course, be our dynamic for the time ahead," he added, according to EFE. .