Spain will have 2,600 million euros in direct aid to reinforce green investments

LUXEMBOURG, 4 Oct. (EUROPE PRESS) -

The Ministers of Economy and Finance (Ecofin) have agreed this Tuesday to provide Spain with an additional 2,600 million euros in direct aid as part of the distribution of 20,000 million euros that the EU will make available to the Twenty-seven to tackle the rise in prices of energy and reinforce investments in infrastructures in this sector as well as the transition towards renewable technologies.

Specifically, Spain will receive 2,586 million euros, which places it as the third country in the EU to receive the most aid from this item, with almost 13% of the total of the 20,000 million euros of the new chapter of the Repower EU program and that will be added to the Recovery and Resilience Plan funding.

Thus, the amount that remains available to Spain within the framework of the addendum that it hopes to have prepared in October for the Recovery and Resilience Plan amounts to almost 95,000 million euros, with 2,600 million from the Repower EU plan, between 84,000 and 86,000 million euros. euros in loans and 7,700 million in additional transfers assigned to Spain.

The EU Economy and Finance Ministers agreed on Tuesday their position on the Brussels proposal to reduce Russia's dependence on fossil fuels, as part of a new chapter of the Recovery and Resilience plan to finance reforms that allow achieving these objectives.

Thus, Ecofin has modified the origin of the funds as well as the allocation criteria for the additional 20,000 million euros proposed by the European Commission, in such a way that 25% of the financing will come from the advance distribution of the rights trading system of CO2 emissions from the EU and another 75% by the Innovation Fund.

Thus, the financing of these 20,000 million euros from Repower Eu responds in part to the demands of the Netherlands, which planned to obtain this amount from the early distribution of the stability reserve of the emissions trading market, although Ecofin has indicated that the objective is "not to disrupt the functioning of the European CO2 emissions trading system while ensuring a credible revenue stream".

In this framework, Poland and Italy are the EU countries that will receive the most aid, with 2,760 million euros for each, which represents 13.8% of the funds.

In order to determine the allocation of these funds, the EU Economy and Finance Ministers have taken into account the cohesion policy, the dependence of the Member States on fossil fuels and the increase in investment prices.

"Today we have taken a step forward to strengthen Europe's autonomy from Russian fossil fuels," said Czech Finance Minister Zbynek Stanjura, who put on the table the need to reach a "rapid" agreement on this proposal.

In any case, the position of the holders of the EU Economy contemplates that only those countries that request additional financing from the Recovery and Resilience Plan will be able to access this financing and will have to do so until August 31, 2023.