Government promotes the deployment of megaprojects with european funds and has already released all the ones I had in my portfolio up to now. The Executive closed last year having approved three strategic projects for economic recovery and transformation (PERTE) and then promised to accelerate the implementation. As reported by El Periódico de España, so far this year has released another eight, and two in the last week.
The Council of Ministers approved last Tuesday the PERTE of microchips, the largest of the projects designed to date, with 12,250 million euros of public investment with European funds linked to the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan (PRTR) to develop a microelectronics and semiconductor industry in the country. And the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, presented this Friday the PERTE of the social and care economy, with an allocation of 800 million euros and which will be formally approved in the next Council of Ministers.
In just one week, the Government has promised more than 13,000 million euros of European funds with the new strategic projects and the total amount mobilized has skyrocketed by 70% with all PERTE released. The eleven megaprojects accumulate committed injections of EU funds for 31,873 million euros (and even exceed 32,200 million if the eventual budget increases considered probable in some of the programs are taken into account).
The large projects already approved by the Government also anticipate another 34,880 million more from private investments (Not including the funds from the private sector that will mobilize the PERTE Chip, which the Executive has not specified in its report, but it is anticipated that it will be a billionaire amount). In total, the eleven PERTE accumulate promises of mobilization of more than 66,750 million public and private investments.
The Executive approved in July of last year the start-up of the PERTE of the electric and connected vehicle, which has already activated the call for aid; at the end of November, it launched the cutting-edge health plan; in December, that of renewable energies, renewable hydrogen and storage; and in February, the megaproject in the agri-food sector.
It was in March when Moncloa and various ministries directly involved stepped on the accelerator with five new PERTE, with the launch of the strategic project of the new economy of the Spanish language; that of the circular economy; the specific plan to modernize the shipbuilding industry; that of the aeronautical and aerospace industry; and also the PERTE of the digitization of water. From the Government it slips that it is still studying and without specifying other PERTE linked to other sectors to promote the digitization and ecological transition of the Spanish economy, and that they will be announced soon.
recovery plan
The European Union allocated around 140,000 million euros of European funds to Spain between 2021 and 2026, half in non-reimbursable funds and the other half in concessional loans, although deliveries are conditional on meeting intermediate milestones and reforms. The strategy activated by the Government was to concentrate in the first three years, until 2023, the 70,000 million in transfers that will not be returned and articulated through the Spanish Recovery Plan. And this year an addendum to the Plan will be presented to design future investments between 2023 and 2026 of the 70,000 million long-term repayable loans.
The amount of funds that Spain will receive, however, will end up being higher. On the one hand, because the European Commission is going to distribute 20,000 additional million between the countries to finance the measures to disconnect from hydrocarbons from Russia and Spain will get between 4,000 and 4,200 million extra. On the other, because Brussels is also going to recalculate part of the distribution of the non-reimbursable funds assigned to each state and, given that the Spanish economy grew less than expected in 2021, another between 3,500 and 4,000 additional million will correspond to us.
Despite criticism from companies and opposition for the slowness in the execution of European funds, the Government continues to show chest for the pace in the development of the Recovery Plan both in 2021 and so far in 2022. In the General State Budgets of 2021, investments of 24,100 million were contemplated with European funds and the 2022 accounts included another 27,000 million more, of which 43% of the total would have already been effectively disbursed by the Government.
According to the latest data provided by the economic vice president, Nadia Calviño, 520 calls for 8,500 million euros have already been resolved that would have already reached the real economy and 13,300 million euros have been transferred to the autonomous communities, whose real execution data is not yet complete. The European Commission foresaw, however, that the implementation of the funds would be greater than what was actually achieved and that their impact on Spanish economic growth would also be greater.
Brussels predicts that the deployment of the Recovery Plan and the injection of European funds into the real economy will have a very powerful impact on the growth of Spanish GDP both in the second half of this year and throughout 2023. The European Commission maintains its estimate that European funds will facilitate 2% GDP growth between 2021 and 2023.