CASH pouring into Spain over the next year will 'treble its financial capacity', according to European Commissioner for Cohesion and Reforms, Elisa Ferreira.
Spain is likely to be one of the first to receive a payout from the European Recovery Fund, set up to help member States rebuild and improve on their economies after these took a battering from the Covid-19 pandemic.
Of the total pot of €750 billion, Spain is eligible for up to €140bn – of which half will be direct, non-refundable grants, and the other half can be requested in no-strings loans.
Although there will be no imposed austerity measures such as tax hikes or high-street restructures like those required when Spain applied for a €100 million bank bailout from the EU in 2012 – particularly as all 27 countries are, this time, automatically entitled to a cut – each nation is required to send in a detailed plan of what it will do with the cash, and which must be signed off before it is paid out.
Portugal, currently the president country of the EU, is aiming for the funds to be released as early as this summer.
Sra Ferreira says: “It's a tsunami of money, and it's a tsunami of responsibility.
“Spain has all the right characteristics to be able to get the best possible out of this historic opportunity.”
This is likely to be because of the nation's heavy dependence upon tourism and the catering industry for its income – both together, in a normal year, these would make up around 30 cents in every euro of Spain's GDP – and the fact that a third of its workforce are self-employed and around 75% of companies are small and medium-sized, mainly family-run, businesses.
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