Delays in the implementation of the recovery and resilience plan in Spain

Subject: Delays in the implementation of the recovery and resilience plan in Spain

The Commission is delaying publication in the Official Journal of the addendum resulting from the final negotiations on the recovery and resilience plan. It was approved in February but has not yet been published.

With regard to Spain, there are a number of reasons for the delays, and these are making themselves felt, including in Galicia. There is no up-to-date register of information relating to the autonomous communities – only national data is available. What is more, the average time for granting funding on the basis of state-level calls for proposals is much longer than the six months set by the Commission, meaning that EUR 5.8 billion has not been allocated. In the meantime, there are many initiatives and infrastructure projects that are in dire need of that funding in areas hit hard by the crisis caused by pandemic and the devastating effects of the hike in energy prices.

I would therefore like to ask:

1. Will the Commission be calling for those responsible to speed up calls for proposals and act more swiftly to disburse the remaining funds?

2. Could the Commission state how much funding has been disbursed and how much is pending?

Submitted: 19.7.2023

Answer given by Mr Gentiloni on behalf of the European Commission

(17 November 2023)

The Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF) is a performance-based instrument, with payments being made based on the satisfactory fulfilment of milestones and targets set out in the Council Implementing Decision (CID) (1) approving the national Recovery and Resilience Plan (RRP).

Provided that the requirements of the milestones and targets set out in the CID are respected, it is the prerogative of each Member State to manage the allocated funds internally.

The implementation of the Spanish RRP (2) is currently well underway and broadly in line with the indicative timeline, laid out in the CID.

The Commission encourages Spain to keep engaging with regional and local authorities to support the implementation of investments and reforms that are part of its RRP using as it did sectoral conferences, where representatives of central and regional governments competent for a given area meet to cooperate. Support from the EU’s Technical Support Instrument (TSI) can be requested to speed up the RRP implementation.

The Recovery and Resilience Scoreboard (3), and in particular the disbursements section, shows the disbursements of RRF payments to Member States.

The Spanish RRP includes a wide range of investment and reform measures in 30 thematic components. It is worth EUR 69.5 billion in grants.

As of today, Spain has received EUR 37 billion under the RRF, either as pre-financing or based on a positive assessment of the fulfilment of 121 milestones and targets set out in the CID.

As of May 2023, Spain has reported that a total of EUR 23.45 billion has been transferred to Spanish regions for their direct management of RRP investments (4).

1 ∙ ⸱ https://data.consilium.europa.eu/doc/document/ST-10150-2021-ADD-1-REV-2/en/pdf

2 ∙ ⸱ https://planderecuperacion.gob.es/

3 ∙ ⸱ https://ec.europa.eu/economy_finance/recovery-and-resilience-scoreboard/index.html

4 ∙ ⸱ https://planderecuperacion.gob.es/ejecucion/mapa-de-inversiones-gestionadas-por-las-comunidades-autonomas