Shortly after the obligatory photo of the new Government team this Tuesday, the Council of Ministers will have to reactivate the pending request of the fourth payment of European funds, for 10,000 million of euros. The request for this fourth payment was pending approval by the European Comission and of Ecofin of the addendum to the Recovery Plan presented by the Spanish Government, something that occurred in October. Furthermore, it is necessary for the Government to approve as soon as possible some of the reforms linked to the fourth payment, such as the public function, whose bill declined when the Cortes were dissolved before the 23-J elections. Now, Brussels allows Spain to reform the public service by decree and it is something that the acting Government has already announced that it would do so in one of the first meetings of the new Council of Ministers, starting this Tuesday.
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It is urgent to request the fourth payment of European funds and it is urgent to do so as soon as possible, to give time to that the European Commission approves the disbursement of its 10,000 million euros. Otherwise 2023 will pass blank. Last February, the European Commission made a disbursement of 6,000 million to Spain, three months after the Government requested the third payment, on November 12. It was money that should have arrived at the end of 2022. If the same thing happens now, the collection of the 10,000 million could be delayed again to the following year.
As initially planned, the fourth payment, of 10 billion, should have been requested in the first half of 2023, charged to reforms completed at the end of 2022. But some of them were delayed. The second phase of the pension reform, It was not approved until March 30, 2023. Other reforms declined with the dissolution of Las Cortes, such as the public service law. After the long period of political suspense that began with the call for general elections on May 29, there is no more time to waste on the agenda of reforms committed in exchange for millions from the European Union.