Spain has not met the conditions of the European Commission in time and is at risk of not receiving the rest of the European recovery funds. As revealed by the leading business news source Bloomberg in a newsletter, last month Spain missed "a second deadline" for the setting up of a new auditing system, a condition set by Brussels in exchange for the delivery of the next installment of the EU aid. Spain is the second-ranked country in Europe terms of the amount it is set to benefit from the recovery funds, due to the dire consequences that the Covid crisis had on its economy, and will receive another 160 billion euros if it complies with the conditions. However, sources cited by the business news specialist indicate that Spain is at real risk of not receiving the rest of the funds assigned to it until it complies with the demand, as they affirm that the EC communicated to the Spanish government last month.
Spain fails to meet deadlines and puts funds at risk
The Spanish state was the first EU member state to receive Covid recovery funds, a fact which the Pedro Sánchez government made much of, although doubts were already in the air due to the difficulty of carrying out the necessary changes. This was the first transfer of funds, worth 30 billion euros. Now, according to new information, it seems that the day Madrid will receive more money is still a long way off. This is according to the sources quoted by Bloomberg, the world's leading business information company. In their opinion, the money from the Covid recovery fund "is key for the country" with economic crisis looming again due to the energy crisis, amidst a difficult structural situation in which "Madrid has had difficulties in reforming the economy for a long time".
In fact, the problem facing the Spanish state is, precisely, in the reform of the system, because it has not even finished applying "the IT system to control the achievement of milestones and objectives of its plan, audits and payment claims," and which was originally supposed to be implemented by the third quarter of 2021. And although Brussels granted a nine-month extension to complete two unfinished milestones, "the government has not met the demands," and the new deadline passed "without a clear launch date" for the new system. The same sources have also revealed dissatisfaction in Brussels due to Spain's tardiness and non-compliance. On their visit to Spain a month before, "senior members" of the EC reportedly warned the Spanish government that "there would be no further disbursements until the audit system is in place and fully functional".