The European Commission confirmed on Monday the transfer to Spain of the 10 billion euros linked to the first 52 milestones of the Recovery Plan. Spain thus becomes the first country to receive direct funding from the Commission for the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF), the government emphasized in a statement.
With this transfer of funds, the disbursement request procedure formally initiated on November 11 by the General Secretariat of European Funds, dependent on the Ministry of Finance, ends.
After the favorable assessment of the Commission and the Council, with the payment by the European Central Bank, Spain becomes the first Member State to receive a disbursement linked to meeting the RRF milestones.
According to the Madrid government, this first tranche of community resources is linked to the fulfillment of 52 milestones of the Plan that fundamentally cover reforms in areas such as sustainable mobility, energy efficiency, decarbonization, connectivity, modernization of the Public Administration or R&D (research and development).
Particularly noteworthy are specific projects such as the 2021-2025 SMEs Digitization Plan, equal pay between women and men or the Climate Change and Energy Transition Law.
More than € 19 billion this year
The president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, congratulated Spain through social media and highlighted that it is the first country to receive the first payment from the Next Generation EU fund. In this sense, the head of the Commission has explained that she hopes that other Member States can soon follow in the footsteps of Spain.
These 10,000 million corresponding to the first disbursement will be added to the € 9,036 million that Spain received in August as pre-financing, a figure equivalent to 13% of the 69,500 million euros that the country will receive in the form of grants from the MRR.
In total, there are already more than € 19 billion transfers from the European Commission to Spain this year linked to the Recovery Plan.
