The visit from Brussels comes after the approval of the third disbursement and after a field of tension between Calviño and the chairman of the European Parliament’s Committee on Budgetary Control
Came the day. The European Parliament’s Committee on Budgetary Control lands in Madrid this Monday and will hold an agenda of interviews and meetings until next Wednesday to scrutinize the use of next-generation European funds. One of the most important meetings is this afternoon with the economic vice president, Nadia Calviño, after the friction that took place a few days ago with Monika Hohlmeier herself, chair of that committee.
Specifically, the German parliamentarian disgraced the Minister of Economic Affairs for the distribution to the media of a letter sent to Brussels by Calviño himself, reviewing the main investments of the plan and expecting the conclusions of the mission even before they had begun.
“It is surprising that the letter was released to the press very soon after I received it and before Commissioners and I had the opportunity to take a good look at it,” said the MEP in a critical letter published last Wednesday. was sent. and to which Europa Press had access.
Despite this climate of tension, the government has a major advantage in taking this exam in Brussels. And it is that on Friday the Commission announced at the last minute its decision to give the green light to the third disbursement of European funds, endowed with 6 billion euros. In other words, with this decision they already confirm that Spain is meeting the milestones and commitments of the recovery plan.
However, monitoring this fact on the ground – as well as the management, audit and control systems – is essential for Hohlmeier and the “men in black” who accompany her on the mission. Especially when there is doubt about the implementation rate of the funds. The government itself is beginning to recognize a certain delay in the arrival of this money to the real economy and is asking the autonomous communities to be more flexible in deploying the funds.
In concrete terms, after the last meeting of the sectoral conference at the end of January, the Ministry of Economic Affairs calculated that the autonomys had already made calls for 50% of the funds transferred. That is about 20,600 million euros. But only about 4,000 million have been solved, less than 20% of that total.
Faced with this data, the General State Administration then claimed to have solved more than 80% of its calls, which corresponds to an investment of about 19,200 million euros.
Against this background, Calviño indicated on Monday that he faces the visit with an “absolutely constructive” attitude. “We are the guinea pigs. Everything that is put to the test in Spain is then applied to the rest of the countries. And that means that we have been given this mandate by the European Parliament and that the Commission has been very demanding with all control issues. But it is in our interest that these resources are used to the maximum,” he said.
In this scenario, the mission arriving in Spain this Monday will be made up of 10 Members of the European Parliament, members of different political groups, six of whom are attached to the European Parliament’s Committee on Budgetary Control, who, after her return to Brussels report on the case. .
More specifically, traveling with Hohlmeier is a group of MEPs, mainly Spanish, such as Isabel Benjumea (PP), Isabel García Muñoz and Eider Gardiazabal (PSOE), Eva María Poptcheva and Susana Solís (Cs), Ernest Urtasun (En Comú Podem) and Jorge Buxade (Vox). Calviño indicated this Monday that “it is true that the important participation of Spanish MEPs from PP and Vox has attracted some attention”, but he stressed that the government’s interest “is to have a visit that is as objective as possible and technically as possible.”
In addition to the meeting with Calviño, meetings are also planned with the Minister of Finance and Public Functions, María Jesús Montero, and the Minister of Inclusion, Social Security and Migration, José Luis Escrivá, as well as with Regional Councilors of Castilla-La Mancha, Madrid, Extremadura, Andalusia and Aragon. They also meet representatives of employers and trade unions, the digital industry, and consultancy and investigative journalists.
At the suggestion of the Spanish government, they will also visit a project funded by the National Recovery Plan, the National Center for Neurotechnology.
The Spanish government faces this investigation with the added tension of convincing the Commission that the milestones will be met to the letter in order to receive the next payment (the fourth). One of the prerequisites for this is the adoption of the second part of the pension reform. In addition, in March the executive expects to approve the draft addendum to the recovery plan, which would request the resources allocated to Spain in the form of loans (not direct aid). 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 under the RePowerEU plan (2,600 million).
Source: La Verdad
I’m Ben Stock, a journalist and author at Today Times Live. I specialize in economic news and have been working in the news industry for over five years. My experience spans from local journalism to international business reporting. In my career I’ve had the opportunity to interview some of the world’s leading economists and financial experts, giving me an insight into global trends that is unique among journalists.
