€140,000 MILLION OF EUROPEAN FUNDS BRIGHTEN UP THE SPANISH PANORAMA IN THE NEW YEAR
Pedro Sánchez, President of the Government of Spain: “Our project for Spain is for Spain to grow. . .
Never before has it been so worthwhile to invest in Spain.”
by Rose Maramba
In his speech at the International Financial Forum on Spain Investors Day, 13 January 2022, the President of the Spanish Government Pedro Sánchez emphasized the fact that along with Portugal, Spain was the first country to submit its post-pandemic recovery plan to the European Commission. Being an early bird, Spain was the first to receive a disbursement from the Next Generation EU (NGEU) Fund. EU. To date, Spain has received a total of 19 billion euros from NGEU. It is “the biggest breakthrough [within the span of a] century when it comes to European integration,” said Sánchez.
Spain is happy to receive the NGEU fund
The Chief Executive has stressed that the €140,000 million from European funds that Spain will receive from here on to 2026 will be invested in the modernization of Spain’s productive fabric. The whopping amount is comparable to the cohesion funds that Spain received “over 34 years ago” when it was a fledgling member of the European Union, Sánchez pointed out.
Note that Spain joined “Europe” in 1986. The new addition to the EU, which was then the European Economic Community (EEC),* was able to morph into one of the major players on the European stage, thanks to the Cohesion Fund. Incidentally, the Cohesion Fund as of today, “provides support to Member States with a gross national income (GNI) per capita below 90% EU-27 average to strengthen the economic, social and territorial cohesion of the EU,” according to the European Commission. The Cohesion Fund for the 2021-2027 period concerns Bulgaria, Czechia, Estonia, Greece, Croatia, Cyprus, Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary, Malta, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia.
Photo op on Spain Investors Day. Sanchéz, center in dark tie.
Referring to the Next Generation Fund, Sánchez predicted that “success will now come back [to Spain] in an accelerated manner.” He underscored the fact that “our country will receive 70 billion euros in transfers up until 2026, to which the Executive will add approximately another 70 billion euros in loans to be requested [from the EU] before June 2023.”
“So worthwhile to invest in Spain”
The President of the Government added that the European funds are not a nebulous pie in the sky but a tangible reality. 91% of the more than 24 billion euros budgeted in the 2021 Recovery Plan have already been authorized. Thus, more than €17 billion will be made available to Spain’s productive fabric by mid-year.
“Our project for Spain is for Spain to grow. May our economy grow, may our employment grow,” Pedro Sànchez told the executives and representatives of companies and multinationals at the Spain Investors Day meeting. He ended his speech by saying that “never before has it been so worthwhile to invest in Spain.”
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*The EEC was created by the Treaty of Rome of 1957. When the European Union (EU) was created in 1993, the EEC was incorporated into the EU and renamed the European Community (EC). In 2009, the EC formally ceased to exist and its institutions were absorbed by the EU, making the latter the EEC’s formal successor institution.
Sources: La Moncloa Gobierno de España, the European Commission
Images
Featured image/Open Clipart Vectors from Pixabay
EU flag/PD via Wikipedia
Investors Day/Fernando Calvo, Pool Moncloa
Woman in flamenco dress/egrLobato from Pixabay
