Sánchez presents €72bn European recovery plan
Spanish President says it is "the most ambitious and far-reaching plan in Spain's economic history".
MadridThe recovery and resilience plan will have funding of €72bn that will be dedicated to priority sectors such as sustainable mobility - to promote the electric car - with €13.2bn; the digitisation of small and medium-sized enterprises (€4.1bn); improving housing (€6,8bn); the public sector, to improve the digitisation of administrations and reduce the rate of temporary employment (€4.3bn); and the promotion of 5G (€4bn), among others. The president of the Spanish government, Pedro Sánchez, has advanced some of the investments in a press conference on Tuesday. The approval of the recovery plan in the council of ministers was scheduled for today but the executive has delayed its approval by a few days.
"It is the most ambitious and far-reaching plan in the economic history of Spain," said Sánchez. "Occasions like this come along very rarely. We will not let the opportunity pass us by. The plan consists of 212 measures: 110 are investments and 102 are reforms. The investments will go to a wide range of projects and areas but the emphasis will be on projects that revolve around one of the four axes of the plan: ecological transition, digital transformation, social and territorial cohesion, and gender equality".
This Tuesday morning the ministerial commission has met to analyse the plan before Sánchez appears in the Congress of Deputies this Wednesday to explain the proposals. It is expected that before the end of the month, when the plan has to be sent to Brussels, the council of ministers will approve it, probably next week. The European Commission will then have to analyse it and give its approval before the money starts to arrive. If there are no further delays, the first transfers will be made in the summer.
The recovery plan will have €140bn of European funding until 2026, of which €72bn are direct aid that will arrive in instalments, provided that Spain complies with the reforms to which it has committed, such as the pension reform or labour reform.
In fact, although the document has not yet been made public, the Spanish government has been giving hints in recent days of the reforms they plan to make and are negotiating with businesses and trade unions. The PP has criticised the tax increase supposedly included in the tax reform and has demanded that the Spanish executive send parliamentary groups a copy of the document of the recovery plan the cabinet analysed today before Sanchez appears in Parliament on Wednesday.
