Spain To Receive €19bn From EU Recovery Funds This Year

Spain To Receive €19bn From EU Recovery Funds This Year.

Spain is due to receive 19 billion euros from the European Union’s COVID-19 recovery package this year, according to a report from the El Pais newspaper.

Spain will receive 9 billion euros in June, as an early payment, and the EU would then transfer the second amount of 10 billion euros by the end of the year.

The Spanish government had originally envisaged an investment of 27 billion euros from the EU recovery funds in the 2021 budget, but delays in the approval of the plan have pushed back of the money to next year.

The president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, will be in Madrid on Wednesday to announce the official approval of the plan and details of the disbursements.

In total, Spain has so far been allocated 70 billion euros in the form of grants to invest until 2023, however, if necessary, projects can be delayed until 2027.

Spain is one of the main beneficiaries of the scheme agreed upon by the 27 member states last year as it is due to receive an overall 140 billion euros, including loans.

Spain plans to invest 13.2 billion euros to boost electric vehicle use, one of a raft of measures as the government prepares to deploy European Union pandemic recovery funds to modernise the economy, Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said.

Electrifying transportation is one of 20 flagship investments that Spain plans to make over the next three years, spending part of its portion of the EU’s recovery fund, Sanchez said during a press conference on Tuesday in Madrid. Other programs include 6.8 billion euros to be spent on improving the energy efficiency of buildings and 4.3 billion euros for modernizing the public administration, he said.

“We have this great opportunity in Spain to carry out all the reforms and investments that we should have done a long, long time ago,” Sanchez said.

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