Subject: Disbursement of recovery funds: application of the principle of additionality and transparency in the selection of beneficiaries
In Royal Decree 1027/2022 regulating the direct award of subsidies to social partners for the digitalisation of the productive sector, the Spanish Government allocates EUR 30 625 000 to three collective representation bodies (the Spanish Confederation of Employers’ Organisations, the Spanish Confederation of Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises and the General Union of Workers) to provide workers with digital skills training. Conceptually, these subsidies fall under objective 298 of Spain’s recovery plan on digital training for workers and the unemployed.
In practice, Royal Decree 1027/2022 replaces the subsidies that already existed under Royal Decree 1104/2020, prior to the approval of the recovery plan, laid down in the 2018 Strategic Plan for Vocational Training, meaning that they are now going to be financed from recovery funds rather than from the budget of the Ministry of Education and Vocational Training.
In view of the above:
1. Taking into account recital 20 of Regulation (EU) 2021/241, does the Commission believe that Royal Decree 1027/2022 implies funding of ordinary national expenditure, thereby disregarding the principle of additionality?
2. Given that more than 40 collective representative bodies are registered in Spain, is it appropriate to award the subsidies directly, without any competitive process?
Submitted: 18.1.2023
Answer given by Mr Gentiloni on behalf of the European Commission
(1 March 2023)
Both Royal Decrees 1104/2020 and 1027/2022 fund actions under Investment 1 of Component 20 of Spain’s Recovery and Resilience Plan (RRP) (1). Royal Decree 1104/2020 was approved on 15 December 2020 and entered into force two days later, with the objective of funding training actions for workers in the area of digital skills during the budget years 2020 and 2021.
Royal Decree 1027/2022 was approved on 20 December 2022, entered into force on 22 December 2022 and is to fund the same kind of actions during the budget years 2022 and 2023.
As laid out in Article 17(2) of Regulation (EU) 2021/241 (2), measures started as of February 2020 onwards are eligible for the RRPs.
Therefore, neither measure stems from legal commitments prior to the eligible timeframe of the Recovery and Resilience Facility, nor do they replace public or equivalent structural expenditure from the Member State.
They also provide support that is additional to that provided under other EU programmes and instruments, thereby observing the principle of additionality as defined in Article 9 of that regulation.
The Commission will assess the alignment of both royal decrees with the provisions of the Council Implementing Decision approving the RRP in the context of the seventh payment request, which is expected in the first half of 2025.
Without prejudice to its powers as guardian of the Treaties, the Commission is not competent to assess the compliance with national law of the procedures followed to distribute the funds.
This is the competence of national courts. In this regard, in its ruling ‘STS 1571/2022’ (3) the Spanish Supreme Court confirmed that the direct award decision laid out in Royal Decree 1104/2020 is in accordance with national law.
1 ∙ ⸱ https://commission.europa.eu/business-economy-euro/economic-recovery/recovery-and-resilience-facility/spains-recovery-and-resilience-plan_en
2 ∙ ⸱ https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A32021R0241#:~:text=Regulation%20%28EU%29%202021%2F241%20of%20the%20European
%20Parliament%20and,%28EU%29%202021%2F241%20of%20the%20European%20Parliament%20and%20 3 ∙ ⸱ https://www.poderjudicial.es/search/openDocument/d99f0e8d1fae509c