The Spanish Government has formally requested from the European Commission the third disbursement of the Recovery and Resilience Mechanism worth 6 billion euro, the Ministry of Finance and Public Administration reported, making Spain the first European country to request the financial aid in this latest instalment of funding.
The third disbursement is linked to the fulfilment, throughout the first half of this year, of 29 milestones and objectives (23 milestones and 6 objectives), according to the Ministry.
With the request, sent on Friday and formulated by the General Secretariat of European Funds, dependent on the Ministry of Finance and Public Administration, Spain becomes the first Member State to request the third disbursement and shows that it is the most advanced country in the execution of the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan (PRTR).
The European Commission (EC) will have three months to carry out the analysis and verification of the documentation presented by the Spanish Government to make the disbursement, after the initial period of two months was extended, according to Ministry sources.
As in the cases of other countries, such as Italy, Cyprus, Romania and Bulgaria, the Government has agreed with the EC to extend the valuation period for another month, up to a total of three, to facilitate the work of the teams, taking into account that Christmas is in the middle of this period.
Among the milestones to which this disbursement is linked, the Ministry has highlighted the reform of the Bankruptcy Law, the Law relating to the Comprehensive Vocational Training System, the reform of the Social Security contribution system for self-employed workers, the Law of Measures to Prevent and Fight Tax Fraud or other reforms that lay the foundations for the development and promotion of investments related to innovative renewable energies.
In addition, this payment request implies advances in R&D&i projects in the automotive sector, the financing of projects to promote the sustainability and competitiveness of agriculture and livestock, the reinforcement of the fight against fires forestry or actions to improve the rate of access to the minimum vital income, among other milestones and objectives.
The satisfactory evaluation of compliance with this package of milestones and objectives will entail the disbursement of 6 billion euro, which would be added to the 31 billion already obtained, of which 9 billion were received as pre-financing and 22 billion corresponded to the first and second disbursement.
In the event of obtaining a positive evaluation by the European Commission, Spain would have already met 121 milestones and objectives out of a total of 416, which would be equivalent to almost 30% of the total number of milestones and objectives.
The request for the third disbursement places Spain “as the most advanced country in the deployment of funds”, having been the first Member State to request both the second and third payments from the EC.
This has made it easier for the implementation of the PRTR to pick up “cruising speed”, as there are already calls for 11 billion euro spread over 53,600 projects, according to the Ministry.
