Subject: Potential cover-up of the Spanish Government’s disbursement of EU funds
In its report of 16 May 2023, Parliament’s Committee on Budgetary Control expressed major reservations about the way in which Pedro Sánchez’s socialist-communist government has disbursed EUR 28 billion under the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF) and a further EUR 9 billion in pre- financing.
In the light of this report:
1. When will the Commission ask Spain’s Minister for the Economy, Ms Calviño, to specify what has been paid out to the final recipients, given that this information was omitted from her letter of 9 May 2023 and Parliament still does not know how much of the funding allocated to Mr Sánchez’s government has been injected into the real economy?
2. When does the Commission intend to ask for explanations as to why certain regions had their funding applications turned down?
3. How long will the Commission give the Spanish Government to provide the European Court of Auditors with access to the CoFFEE and Minerva systems for control and prevention of conflict of interests?
Submitted:6.6.2023
Answer given by Mr Gentiloni on behalf of the European Commission
(11 September 2023)
In contrast to other programmes, the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF) (1) is a performance-based instrument. This means that payments are made on the basis of the satisfactory fulfilment of the milestones and targets set out in the Council Implementing Decision approving the positive assessment of their plans (CID).
The RRF Regulation (2) does not require the Member States to report on the funding disbursed to final recipients. As of today, Spain has received EUR 37 billion under the RRF, as pre-financing and as disbursements following the satisfactory fulfilment of 121 milestones and targets in the CID.
Provided that the requirements in the CID are respected, each Member State can decide on the implementation modalities for specific actions contributing to fulfil the milestones and targets in the CID.
In Spain, sectoral conferences are the mechanism where representatives of central and regional governments competent for a given area meet to cooperate.
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 Recovery and Resilience Plan investments.
It is up to the European Court of Auditors to carry out reviews, checks, audits and investigations, and request access to relevant systems, if considered necessary, in accordance with Article 12 of the Financing Agreement signed between the Commission and the Kingdom of Spain (3).
1 ∙ ⸱ https://commission.europa.eu/business-economy-euro/economic-recovery/recovery-and-resilience-facility_en
2 ∙ ⸱ https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A32021R0241
3 ∙ ⸱ https://planderecuperacion.gob.es/sites/default/files/2021-12/ES_RRF_Financing_Agreement.pdf