The European Commission “trusts” that the government will reach an agreement on the second part of the pension reform
The First Vice-President and Minister of the Economy, Nadia Calviño, and the Commissioner for the Economy, Paolo Gentiloni, met ahead of the Eurogroup meeting to discuss the implementation of the recovery plan and Spain’s request for the third disbursement of European funds . of 6,000 million euros. Gentiloni has stressed the “good impact” of the Spanish plan. Calviño, for his part, is confident that the response from the European Commission will arrive “early February”.
In his statements, Gentiloni has pointed to the good progress of the Spanish plan. “We are working very closely with the Spanish authorities. They are at the forefront of the deployment of Next Generation funds and that is a privilege as well as a challenge,” he assured. He also added that the European Commission and Spain are discussing “the latest issues” for the third disbursement of these funds .
The second tranche of the pension reform is still pending, which is subject to the fourth disbursement of the Next Generation funds. “We will deal with this saint in the summer,” said Gentiloni, who is confident that an agreement on the matter will be reached soon. Minister Calviño is also “optimistic” about this change: “I am sure we will reach an agreement. The pension system is the crown jewel of our welfare state and we want to make sure it works for the next 30 or 40 years,” he stressed.
At the moment, the deployment of recovery funds is “the main priority” of the Spanish government. “This is an unprecedented amount of resources and we must make the most of this opportunity to respond to the challenges ahead,” stressed Calviño. Among them will be the impact of the war in Ukraine on the European economy, one of the main debates this Monday at the meeting of eurozone ministers.
In this difficult context, the Spanish economy will be “one of the main drivers of the EU”, says Calviño. And it is that, as the first vice president pointed out, the main economic institutions predict significant growth for Spain. Part of that success has to do with “government-approved measures that have managed to bring inflation down over the past five months” to the lowest levels among countries with the common currency.
Source: La Verdad
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