The Government and the European Commission have already drafted with opacity the operational contract for new European funds, according to this newspaper sources.
The content is already agreed upon lack of the final official signature, according to the aforementioned sources and is the one known as Operational Arrangement.
It is the previous step required for Spain to start requesting the new Next Generation funds after the advancement of 9,000 million euros received last August.
The document encloses the operating details of how Spain can receive up to 140,00 billions provided until 2026 and is accompanied by annexes with the reforms to be carried out.
The government is reluctant so far to make it public and has not even explained in Parliament what you wanted to include in the document before agreeing it with Brussels, despite the fact that it transcends this legislature.
However, the sources consulted indicate that the contract does not deploy new conditions for obtaining money beyond the forecasts, although it is detailed by the method of monitoring and evaluation by Brussels.
It is the first document of this type that has drafted the European Commission with a Member State and is a necessary contract and envisaged in the Community Rules of Funds.
“The Member State and the European Commission will specify in agreement in operational provisions the provisions and the Calendar for Monitoring and Execution, the relevant indicators in relation to compliance with the planned milestones and objectives, the provisions to facilitate the Commission of
Complete access to the underlying data and, where appropriate, the additional milestones and objectives related to the loan payment, “says article 20.6 of the European Regulation of 12 February 2021 establishing the recovery and resilience mechanism.
The Ministry of Finance, Economy and Moncloa have prepared the document together with the European Commission with secrecy, without explaining in any parliamentary appearance, not even in the budgetary debate on Wednesday, the terms that they wanted to agree with Brussels.
The leader of the PP, Pablo married, took the agreement between the government and Brussels and demanded this Wednesday to be revealed.
“If they do not make it public this week, we will go to the European Parliament and the European Commission to demand that it be published and we will do it public for all Spaniards.”
This was thus expressed during the intervention of him in the general budgets of the State for 2022.
The Minister of Finance, María Jesús Montero, did not reply and, although he did not give any detail, he implicitly admitted that he is already more than advanced, because he announced that he is “finalizing the request for 10,000 million”.
It is the first stretch of funds after the advance and that request is not possible without having before agreed to the operational contract.
The European Commissioner for Economic Affairs, Paolo Gentiloni, could not sign it even during his recent visit to Madrid on October 25, not being completed then, but he was already remembered with the government to be able to sign it at a distance as soon as he was ready as it happens
now.
Once signed and to collect the money, the government must accredit 52 reforms in this section.
Gentiloni assured at a press conference in Madrid next to Vice President Nadia Calviño that he considered that most of them – are not even the most sensitive – are already implemented and the rest will be evaluated by the Commission for a few weeks.
More problematic will probably be the next section in 2022, in which he will have already present, among others, labor reform.
