Brussels gives Italy 21,000 million for the first payment of its recovery plan | Economy

The European Commission has already paid Italy the 21,000 million euros that correspond to the first tranche of its recovery plan, of which 10,000 million correspond to subsidies and the other 11,000 to loans, as announced by the Executive chaired by Ursula Von der Leyen. With this amount, Italy has already received 35,893 million from the Recovery Fund, counting both the amounts disbursed this Wednesday and the pre-financing (24,892.7 million) received in August 2021 when the plans presented by the Government of Mario Draghi received the go-ahead of The Twenty Seven.

Italy submitted the request to receive this money on December 27, considering that it had already met the 51 milestones and reforms that it agreed with the Commission as part of the first tranche of its recovery fund. Subsequently, Brussels began to evaluate the documentation presented by Rome until it finally considered that they complied with what was agreed on February 28. Later, following the procedure established by the European regulation of the Recovery Fund, it was the Council of the EU, that is, the Member States, who examined this guarantee and gave it the go-ahead. Once this tour is completed, the Commission disburses that money.

With the payment to Italy, there are now four countries, all from the south of the EU, that have received the money corresponding to the first phase of the recovery plan: Spain, France, Greece and Italy. Croatia and Portugal have also requested it, a country that has had its administrative machinery stopped at the beginning of the year when elections were held and a new government was formed.

The almost 36,000 million euros that Italy has received already make it the country that has received the most funds to deploy the recovery plan. This, in a way, is logical because it is the State that is going to receive the most money if subsidies and loans are added: a total of 191.5 billion, of which 68.9 billion correspond to aid and the rest (122.6 billion) to loans. Spain, on the other hand, has so far received 19,040 million, although it all corresponds to subsidies because for now it has not submitted its application to access the credits to which it is entitled (about 70,000 million euros).

Keep in mind that the amounts already collected are final. Not so the total income forecasts, neither those 191,500 million nor the 140,000 in total that Spain would receive. This is because part of the final funds to be received by the Member States are conditional on the economic recovery from the crisis caused by the pandemic. And this precaution leads us to think that Spain will finally see its final figure increased somewhat, while Italy will see it reduced, since one country has come out of the crisis with less force while another, until the war in Ukraine began, stood out for the vigor with which he recovered.