BRUSSELS, 17 Feb. () –
The European Commission has given the go-ahead this Friday for the disbursement to Spain of the third tranche of the Recovery and Resilience plan, endowed with 6,000 million euros, by concluding the required milestones and reforms, for which reason it must now face the measures to which is subject to the fourth payment, including the reform of the pension system.
The satisfactory evaluation of the 29 milestones and reforms still needs the endorsement of the rest of the Twenty-seven before the payment can be made, probably in March. The 6,000 million will thus be added to the 31,036 million euros already received, including the advance of 9,036 million and the 22,000 million of the first two tranches.
In this way, Spain becomes the first Member State to receive a favorable evaluation from the Commission to receive the third disbursement of the ‘Next Generation EU’ funds, after having requested it last November.
The President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, has congratulated Spain for taking “another important step on its road to recovery” and which, as she highlighted, “attests to Spain’s continued drive towards its ecological and digital transitions and their own social and economic resilience “Congratulations, Spain! Carry on like this, the Commission is by your side”, she added.
With the validation of the third tranche, Brussels also considers closed the supervision of the milestone that requires having a computerized audit system, a commitment that was already considered good with the first disbursement but that was committed to specific surveillance to ensure its ” continued compliance”.
Community sources have pointed out that the commitments have now been implemented, so there will be no more follow-up linked to this specific milestone, number 173, although they add that each of the national plans is subject to control procedures and audits provided for by the regulation.
This third disbursement was subject to the reform of the insolvency law, the modernization of the professional training system, the prevention of tax evasion and fraud, and included measures to promote renewables, investments in sustainable transport or reinforcement of the health system, as well as the connection of inclusion policies with the minimum income regime.
The entry into force of the reform of the Bankruptcy Law has contributed to this, which establishes a second chance procedure and introduces a special procedure aimed at micro-SMEs that reduces the duration and cost of the same and that will be processed entirely by electronic means.
In the educational field, one of the milestones consists of the entry into force of the Law on the Comprehensive Vocational Training System, whose purpose is to regulate a regime of professional training and accompaniment capable of responding flexibly to the interests and aspirations of professional qualification. of people throughout their lives and the skills demanded by the new productive and sectoral needs.
On the other hand, with regard to pensions, the reform of the Social Security contribution system for self-employed workers has been carried out to gradually implement a new contribution system based on real income.
The third payment also included the reform of the social security and pension contribution system for the self-employed, milestone 411, what the reform will do is change gradually until 2032, change the contribution base for the self-employed so that it is based on on your actual income.
BUDGETARY CONTROL MISSION
The favorable evaluation from Brussels comes a few days before a delegation from the European Parliamentary Committee on Budgetary Control visits Madrid -between February 20 and 22– to evaluate the application of the National Recovery and Resilience Plan of Spain, including the milestones and objectives and, in particular, the established management, auditing and control systems.
The mission to Spain -the first country to receive a payment in 2021 and which has already received 31,000 million euros- will be made up of 10 MEPs, members of various political groups, six of whom are attached to Parliament’s Budgetary Control Committee Council, which after his return to Brussels will draw up a report on the matter.
Specifically, together with the president of the Europarliamentary commission, Monika Hohlmeier, who leads the delegation, a group of MEPs, mostly Spanish, travels: Isabel Benjumea (PP), Isabel García Muñóz and Eider Gardiazabal (PSOE), Eva María Poptcheva and Susana Solís (Cs), Ernest Urtasun (En Comú Podem) and Jorge Buxadé (Vox).
The scheduled agenda includes meetings with the First Vice President and Minister of Economic Affairs, Nadia Calviño; the Minister of Finance, María Jesús Montero, and the Minister of Social Security, José Luis Escrivá, as well as those responsible for the Recovery Plan, the audit and anti-fraud offices, with regional councilors from Andalusia, Madrid, Castilla-La Mancha , Extremadura and Aragón and with different business organizations, unions, banks and specialized journalists.
