The European Commission published on February 21 what will be its criteria when issuing partial disbursements for failure to meet some of the milestones committed by the countries in their respective Recovery Plans. The total amount of planned transfers (69,720 million in the case of Spain) must be divided by the total number of milestones and objectives committed (415, in the Spanish plan). That will result a unit value of each milestone (168 million, for Spain). The penalty will be the result of multiplying the number of unmet milestones by the unit value, but the document issued by the European Commission warns that in the case of unfulfilled reforms, the resulting amount can be multiplied by 5, depending on its relevance. Based on these rules, and taking into account that the European Commission has yet to evaluate three milestones corresponding to the sustainability of the system, it could be concluded that a hypothetical penalty to Spain for non-compliance with these reforms could reach 2,500 million. . The amount could be even higher, if one takes into account that the hypothetical non-compliance would affect one of the recommendations to Spain that are part of the so-called ‘European semester’, which is considered an aggravating circumstance. However, the system provides for a subsequent period of six months during which the Member State could end up meeting the corresponding milestones. If so, the European Commission, after a positive evaluation, would lift the suspension and pay the frozen amount. However, if the assessment is negative within that extra period of six months, the suspended amount would be permanently lost and would be deducted from the global amount.