The European Parliament approves a resolution critical of Brussels for its laxity with Spain in funds and calls for tougher controls

The European Parliament has approved a resolution in which it criticizes the laxity of the European Commission with Spain in the control of European funds and calls for hardening the systems to ensure compliance with the objectives. This is a resolution on the 2021 accounts of the European Commission in which it approves, but expresses criticism and calls for changes. In that year, the only member state that received funds from the new so-called Recovery and Resilience Mechanism was Spain and the European Parliament has endorsed the criticism of the Parliamentary Control Commission chaired by the German Monika Hohlmeier.
“The resolution criticizes how the Commission has evaluated the only payment made in 2021 to Spain, noting that not all the milestones were adequately met before disbursing the funds. This raises doubts about the procedure with which the Recovery Fund is being spent,” said a statement from the European People's Party, which has supported the resolution.

The PSOE MEP and rapporteur on the management of the European Commission, Isabel García Muñoz, could not stop the critical resolution and charge against the popular: “The European People's Party has allied with the extreme right to discredit Spain despite the support of the European Commission to the management of the Government of Pedro Sánchez”

According to an official statement from the European Parliament, chaired by Roberta Metsola, “the resolution went ahead with 460 votes in favor compared to 129 against, and 49 abstentions” and, in it, “the MEPs express their concern about the limited options they have the EU to check how the money from the Recovery Mechanism is being used”.

According to the European Parliament, “control requirements are less stringent than for other EU programs and rely more on national authorities, which in some cases are too error-prone and unreliable”. Therefore, “the text warns about the risk of misuse, fraud and organized crime and urges the Commission to strengthen the vigilance of the internal control systems of the Member States to prevent and detect fraud, corruption and conflicts of interests”.

In the resolution, the European Parliament urges the Commission to “ensure that the funding of the recovery mechanism meets its objectives”, say the MEPs, concerned by “preliminary indications” that in some EU countries the funds may have replaced ordinary national spending, instead of dedicating itself to the reforms and investments established in the national plans.

The resolution must be attended by the vice-president of the Commission, Valdis Dombrovskis, and the European Commissioner for Economic Affairs, Paolo Gentiloni, as those responsible for compliance with the conditions of the funds. The text contradicts the messages of the first vice president, Nadia Calviño, about the good execution of the funds. According to the official statement from Strasbourg, the European Parliament “raises doubts about the Commission's assessment of national compliance with the “milestones and objectives” (conditional criteria for EU countries to receive payments from the mechanism) and highlights its lack of clarity and comparable definitions.

Therefore, “MEPs ask the Commission to refrain from assessing this compliance “on the basis of political negotiations”. In this regard, they refer to the specific case of Spain, which received a payment from the recovery fund in 2021 without having gathered sufficient evidence of having met the milestones.. A posteriori, the European Court of Auditors ruled that one of these milestones had not been fully met,” according to the institution's official statement.