Brussels disburses €23.1 billion to Spain from the Recovery Plan, but withholds €1.127 billion for failing to comply with several reforms.

Spain has received €23.1 billion net from the fifth payment of the Recovery, Transformation, and Resilience Plan, €1.127 billion less than it requested due to its failure to implement some of the reforms it had committed to with Brussels.

Specifically, according to the European Commission, an amount of approximately €500 million is being suspended for failing to raise the diesel tax and failing to make progress in the digitalization of regional and local authorities. Spain now has six months to successfully implement these two milestones.

An additional amount of approximately €627 million is also suspended due to the reversal of a milestone related to the reform of temporary employment in the civil service. This amount had previously been disbursed as part of Spain's first payment request. The Commission has now deducted this amount from the fifth payment request because the milestone can no longer be considered satisfactorily met. In this case, Spain also has six months to take additional measures to satisfactorily meet this milestone.

Despite these holdups, the Commission issued a positive assessment of the progress and prerequisites for payment on Thursday, which, together with the favorable opinion of the Council's Economic and Financial Committee, has authorized the disbursement of €23.1 billion. The payment is made up of € 7.1 billion in loans, which support "flagship investments of the Recovery Plan" such as the construction of public housing or the modernization of the railway system, and nearly €16 billion in grants , which "will allow the funds to continue to be deployed in strategic areas" such as housing policy or the promotion of science and innovation, the Ministry of Finance stated in a press release published this morning.

The disbursement took place after the College of Commissioners adopted the payment decisions authorizing the fifth operation of the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan, and following Spain's submission of its fifth payment request on December 19. This request contained 69 milestones and objectives associated with key reforms and investments in areas such as education, justice, the ecological transition, renewable energy, infrastructure, and support for SMEs.

The payment covers 82 of the 84 milestones and objectives to which our country committed. At the beginning of the year, Brussels gave Spain a deadline of February 20th to raise diesel taxes as a prerequisite for the Commission to authorize the full payment of this fifth tranche of aid, as this newspaper reported. However, the Spanish government failed to comply with this obligation, among others, and Brussels cut part of the fund, specifically €1.1 billion, ABC reported a month ago. For failing to keep its promises , the EU warned Spain by suspending €620 million due to the lack of a solution to the temporary nature of interim workers, €460 million for diesel, and another €40 million for the lack of digitalization in regional and local entities, which has since been implemented.

It is worth noting that Spain's recovery and resilience plan is being funded with €163 billion in EU grants and loans . The total funds disbursed to Spain under the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF) currently amounts to €71.1 billion, representing 44% of the total allocation, as announced by the Commission this Friday.