Spain completes its Recovery Plan and submits its final payment request for €25.861 billion

The Government of Spain has taken the final step in the implementation of the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan (PRTR) by submitting its seventh and final payment application. The amount requested totals €25.861 billion, making it the largest payment request submitted by a Member State, both in terms of the volume of funds requested and the number of milestones and targets achieved.

The application relates to 148 milestones and targets, representing 30 per cent of the total planned by Spain. In this seventh application, 130 milestones and targets relate to non-repayable grants and 18 to loans.

This seventh instalment consists of:

• €21.463 billion in transfers, of which Spain will be able to receive €18.711 billion on a net basis, after deducting the pre-financing received at the start of the Plan.
• €4.398 billion in loans, €4.166 billion on a net basis.

Completion of the PRTR

With this application, the funds allocated under the PRTR would total €101.3 billion. With the completion of the Plan, Spain has undergone an unprecedented transformation and has established itself as one of the Member States that has made the most of the NextGenerationEU funds. This mechanism has played a key role in overcoming the crisis caused by COVID-19, in better equipping the country to tackle the successive crises of recent years, and in strengthening the country's capacity and resilience to face the challenges and crises of the future.

The submission takes place within the framework of the Mechanism's closure timetable, which set 31 August 2026 as the deadline for achieving the milestones and targets and 30 September for submitting the final payment claims. The European Commission has until 31 December 2026 to make the corresponding disbursement.

Key milestones and objectives

The seventh and final payment request brings the Plan's cycle to a close, with far-reaching reforms and the completion of major investments. Among these reforms and investments, the following areas are particularly noteworthy:

• Housing and renovation: Construction has begun on 23,000 homes intended for social rental, of which 16,000 have already been completed and the remainder are due to be finished in the coming months, and the ICO Vivienda social housing development scheme has been formalised, with a budget of €568 million for 4,675 homes. In residential refurbishment, 53,375 energy efficiency certificates have been issued, representing an average reduction of 30 per cent in non-renewable primary energy consumption. Cumulative tax relief amounts to €734 million; 1.23 million m² of public buildings have been refurbished; and 854 clean energy projects have been completed in small towns.
• España Crece, a lever for investment beyond the Plan: An injection of more than €13.3 billion into the Official Credit Institute (ICO) to activate the España Crece fund, alongside the adoption of its investment policy. The fund extends the investment momentum of the recovery plan, prioritising affordable housing, the green transition and innovative projects. Its investment policy ensures that the funds are channelled into green investments, such as the construction of new energy-efficient buildings, renewable energy, clean urban transport rolling stock and energy efficiency in SMEs.
• Financial instruments supporting the productive sector: Completion of the Plan's financial instruments, comprising €4.390 billion from the Autonomous Community Resilience Fund, managed by the EIB Group, €2 billion from the FOCO fund, €1.445 billion from the Next Tech fund and €878 million from the PERTE Chip financing mechanism, in addition to the ICO line for Empresas y Emprendedores.
• Energy transition and decarbonisation: Funding totalling around €7.5 billion has been committed to promote renewable hydrogen, the ecological transition, and industrial decarbonisation and modernisation. In addition, 161 projects to digitise the electricity distribution networks have been awarded.
• Sustainable mobility: Implementation of over 1,000 projects, with public investment of more than €2.9 billion, subsidies for the purchase of nearly 175,000 electric vehicles and the installation of more than 116,270 charging points. Investments have also been completed in the Trans-European Transport Network, the upgrading of railway stations and air traffic management.
• Social cohesion, equality and the quality of public spending: Adoption of a minimum common set of social services for the whole country, including its information system, alongside €1.805 billion for infrastructure, equipment and the digitalisation of social services, and €304 million for measures to promote personal autonomy and independent living.

The motion also notes the entry into force of the Organic Law on Equal Representation, which guarantees a balanced representation of women and men on electoral lists, in constitutional bodies and in the Council of Ministers, and the creation of the Advisory Council on the Gender Gap.

In addition, AIReF has published a new series of spending reviews covering support schemes for SMEs, MUFACE, temporary incapacity benefits, official development assistance and the Minimum Basic Income.

• Industrial, technological and digital leadership: Presentation of projects in areas such as energy efficiency, sustainability and digital transformation, including the Strategic Projects for Economic Recovery and Transformation (PERTE).

In the semiconductor sector, €153 million has been allocated to participation in the IPCEI programme for Microelectronics and Connectivity and other value chain projects, the capitalisation of SETT with over €368 million, and the creation of 13 specialist university chairs.

In the area of digitalisation, key figures include €693 million for the digital transformation of regional and local authorities, nearly €300 million for broadband roll-out, €839 million for the roll-out of 5G technology, connectivity vouchers for vulnerable groups and SMEs, a contribution of €300 million to the EuroHPC Joint Undertaking, and participation in European Space Agency programmes. Furthermore, the recovery plan has facilitated nearly four million digital skills training courses, whilst 66.2 per cent of citizens possess basic digital skills - more than ten percentage points above the European average.

The entrepreneurship and Digital Innovation Hubs programmes are also being completed, along with 1,450 projects in the circular economy and waste management, with associated public investment totalling more than €1.150 billion.

• Other measures: Investment in vocational training, with the creation or conversion of 3,631 vocational training groups to a bilingual format and the addition of 6,585 new vocational training groups compared with the 2019/2020 academic year; in healthcare, with the creation of the National Health Data Hub; in science and innovation, with the promotion of the Aerospace PERTE and knowledge transfer; in water, support for water and wastewater treatment infrastructure and dam safety; and in biodiversity, just transition, historic heritage and grants to around 1,900 beneficiaries and projects in the cultural and creative industries.

The seventh application also includes three objectives from the sixth payment application, the implementation requirements for which have been clarified by means of a technical addendum agreed with the European Commission to facilitate their full validation.

An unprecedented administrative effort

To achieve this level of implementation, the Spanish administration has made a significant effort in terms of co-governance. Verifying these 148 milestones and targets has required the mobilisation of a technical structure that has submitted more than 3.3 million verification documents to Brussels - almost double the number in the previous application. A total of 5,505 officials from all public administrations have been involved in this work, 50 per cent more than in the sixth application:

• Local presence: 4,307 officials from local bodies and their teams.
• Regional and academic strength: 638 representatives from the regional governments and 159 from the university sector.
• Central and institutional administration: 294 officials from the General State Administration and 107 from the institutional public sector.

This coordination effort, led by the Secretariat General for European Funds at the Ministry of Finance, has presented an unprecedented challenge. Spain is one of the most decentralised countries in the European Union, and the implementation of the Plan has required close coordination between the General State Administration, the regional governments, local bodies and universities in relation to a completely new instrument.

Non official translation