European fund management falls by 40% in the first half of the year

Management of European funds he suffered a slow down in the first semester of this year, in a way that between January and June of this year, only 7.770 million euros were allocated, compared to 12,858 million in the first half of last year, according to data compiled by the LLYC Next Generation EU Unit Observatory. Generally, in execution A recovery, transformation and resilience plan (PRTR) — which was approved in April 2021, and whose execution period ends at the end of 2026 — so far this year, the rate of engagement of funds has slowed down, especially compared to 2022, when there was a significant acceleration of the launch of calls for grants and tenders . The criterion applied by LLYC is to count the funds that have been committed when the corresponding call or tender notice is published, even if the start of the application period is later. Accordingly, in In 2021, 20,620 million euros were committed (almost all in the second half of the year, given that the PRTR was approved in April) and during the two half-years of 2022, an average of 14,000 million euros was exceeded (12,856 million in the first and 15,540 million in the second), while in the first half of this year the volume of committed funds fell to the aforementioned HRK 7,770 million. This represents a decrease of 40% compared to the same period last year and 50% compared to the second half of 2022.

The clearest reasons for this slowdown appear to be the protracted final negotiations on the Addendum (which has modified aspects of the original PRTR) and the delay in publishing the reform of the General Block Exemption Regulation (RGEC), which was approved by the European Commission in February but has not yet been appeared in Official Gazette of the EU.

In addition, the resolution of pre-notifications on programs presented to the Commission with the aim of expanding funds (such as the call for hydrogen valleys) or organizational changes in key ministries for the implementation of the PRTR had an impact. .

As for the management of these funds (that is, handling calls, awarding subsidies and tenders), updated data is only available for what relates to the General State Administration (OPDU), while there are still no updated records. of all data related to autonomous communities.

In relation to AGE, until June 30, 2023, it resolved calls and tenders worth 22,076 million euros (63.69% of 34,660 million awarded by AGE and 31.4% of the total of 70,316 million PRTR). The rate of distribution of funds by the state is 73.91% (according to the end of 2022), that is, three out of every four euros are allocated to end users, while one out of every four remains undistributed, becoming the rest.

The General State Administration would already allocate 16,316 million (23.2% of the total PRTR and 28.78% of the state’s obligation). The average deadline for deciding on state invitations to tender is still longer than the one established in the regulatory framework (the actual average deadline is 197 days, compared to the established 6 months).

5,800 crore without allocation

With this level of judgement, the remaining grants of state calls and tenders are increasing, as the execution of the Plan progresses: by June 30, the unallocated amounts that should find their destination would already amount to 5,760 million euros (which represents 10.16% of the total amount that is AGE took up to now 8.19% of the total original PRTR).

According to these calculations, if AGE ends up managing, through calls and tenders, the same percentage of the original PRTR as by the end of June this year (55.92%), there could be a total of more than 10,300 million left when the totality of the original plan is awarded, to which any remnants of the part governed by the autonomies should be added.

On June 6, 2023, the Spanish government approved a proposal for an Addendum with which Spain will incorporate an additional 94,653 million euros (10,344 million in the form of grants and 84,309 million in the form of a loan) to the 70,316 million from the original plan. (all in the form of loans).

The new funds will be allocated almost entirely to two blocks of investment in vehicles: PERTE (28.275 million) and investment funds (66.328 million). Among the latter, the Autonomous Resilience Fund with 20,000 million euros stands out, which will serve to promote projects that promote sustainable investments according to priorities that each autonomous community can determine.

From PERTE (with 10.294 million additional subsidies and 17.981 million new loans), 12.250 million will be allocated to the PERTE Chip, as well as an additional almost 5.500 million (4.199 million in grants and 1.295 million in loans). ) which will strengthen PERTE ERHA (Renewable Energy, Renewable Hydrogen and Storage), including 1,600 million for the green hydrogen promotion program.

At the end of 2023, the dates scheduled for the allocation of most of the initial funds allocated to Spain, in the post-election scenario and with a small reserve for delaying the execution of key programs, expire.

Rueda: “We still don’t know anything about Altra funds”

The president of Xunta, Alfonso Rueda, regretted yesterday that, a year after he asked the Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, for the necessary funds so that the company Altri could establish its textile fiber factory in Palas de Rei, to this day as of today still ” knows nothing” about European funds for that project. “The only thing I asked for was to encourage the project with European funds, which to this day remain unspent and withheld by the Ministry of Industry, so that no one can benefit from them,” Rueda told the media. communication. “Despite the fact that the president told me that the current schedule would be reached, a year has passed and we still know absolutely nothing,” said President Xunte, who visited the Palas de Rei yesterday, accompanied by congressional candidate PP Lugo , Francisco Conde, Jim Sports headquarters. In the same vein, the leader of the popular Galicians expressed his regret that the only thing the central government offered for the implementation of projects like Altra in Palas was “many promises, many meetings and an effort to make things more and more complicated every day, with bureaucracy and tangled procedures » That’s why he hopes that on July 23, all this will be over, so that they “start working really well”.