The visit from Brussels takes place after the approval of the third disbursement | Faced with criticism from some autonomous communities, Calviño defends co-governance in the development of the Recovery Plan
The Brussels examination of the Spanish Government for the use of European funds has begun. A delegation from the European Parliament led by the German Monika Hohlmeier landed in Madrid this Monday with the mission of verifying first-hand whether the ‘cruising speed’ that the Executive boasts about the execution of aid has already translated into concrete projects.
Although the arrival of the ten MEPs takes place under the premise of “absolute cordiality”, the truth is that there is some discomfort after the exchange of letters between Hohlmeier and the economic vice president, Nadia Calviño, whom the German accused of having made public one of the letters without giving time for his team to analyze its content, with information on the evolution of the Recovery Plan.
Despite the small friction, the Government assured this Monday “maximum transparency” in the documentation that it will offer to the MEPs, who yesterday held their first meeting with Calviño and representatives of the autonomous communities. The vice president wanted to give a look of normality to the visit by assuring that Spain has been a “guinea pig”, as it is the most advanced country in receiving funds. «Everything that is put to the test in Spain is then applied to the rest of the countries. And that makes this mission particularly demanding with all the control issues,” she said.
Calviño did not want to miss the opportunity to emphasize that “the important participation of MEPs from PP and Vox has also attracted a bit of attention”, with one representative each. However, the European Parliament list also includes, among others, two PSOE MEPs, Isabel García Muñoz and Eider Gardiazabal.
In its favor, the Government has a great asset to pass the exam with flying colors. And it is that the Commission itself gave its approval on Friday to the third disbursement of the funds, endowed with 6,000 million euros. In other words, they confirm that Spain is meeting the milestones and commitments of the Recovery Plan. But beware. Because certifying the proper functioning of the management, auditing and control systems on the ground can be much more difficult. Especially given the criticism that some autonomous communities staged yesterday with which there were also meetings.
Transparency
Madrid, governed by the PP, informed the MEPs that, as far as the Government is concerned, there is currently “zero transparency” and “zero collaboration”, to which the Executive responded forcefully, recalling that Madrid is one of the most advanced communities in the execution of the investments and precisely “for this reason it is not understood that they are constantly protesting.” On the complaint that the Recovery Plan does not meet the investment proposals, the Ministry of Economic Affairs replied that the European funds are responding to the needs raised by the Community of Madrid.
As an example, from Economic Affairs they point out that more than 300 million euros have been allocated to the Community of Madrid in education, which is the area for which the Community has requested the largest budget.
For its part, Andalusia complained about the malfunction of the ‘Coffee’ tool, through which the projects are controlled, in addition to insisting that the regions have not participated in the design of the Recovery Plan. «The Junta de Andalucía comes to the meeting ready to lend a hand, to collaborate and to work as much as possible so that these European funds are an effective and efficient mechanism and for this it is necessary to correct and improve some issues detected in the plan and that they are repeated in the new package of funds or addendum”, they indicated.
The autonomies governed by the PSOE that participated in the meeting handled a more constructive discourse, but also conveyed the urgency of greater flexibility to adapt resources to the needs of each territory. An idea that the general secretary of the CEOE, José Alberto González-Ruiz, joined, insisting that the arrival of money to SMEs and the self-employed must be accelerated.
The Government defends that the majority of the communities participating in the meeting valued co-governance, although it maintains its message that it is the autonomies that must expedite the deployment. “The figures are there,” indicate sources from Economic Affairs. Specifically, the regions have already launched calls for 50% of the transferred funds, some 20,600 million euros. But only about 4,000 million have been resolved, less than 20% of the total.
Faced with these data, the General State Administration estimates that it has resolved more than 80% of its calls, which corresponds to an investment of some 19,200 million euros. With these figures on the table, the vice president, Nadia Calviño, defended in her meeting with the European delegation that the autonomous communities have contributed to the design of the Plan, referring to the 139 sectoral conferences in which the autonomies have agreed on the criteria for cast and have helped design shows like Perte.
Next target
The Spanish Executive faces this examination with the added tension of convincing the Commission that the milestones will continue to be met to the letter to receive the next payment (the fourth). And it is that among the requirements to be met for this would be the approval of the second leg of the reform of the pension system.
In addition, the Government expects to approve the draft addendum to the Recovery Plan in March, with which the funds assigned to Spain in the form of loans (not direct aid) would be requested. This includes the loans themselves (84,000 million), as well as additional transfers to boost the strategic economy (7,700 million), as well as those framed in the RePowerEU plan (2,600 million).
#mission #monitors #European #funds #arrives #Spain #full #controversy #execution