The Commission’s Executive Vice-President for Cohesion and Reforms, Raffaele Fitto, one the officials overseeing the recovery spending, defended Spain, saying: “While the payment of pensions and other forms of current expenditure is not eligible for NextGenEU or Recovery and Resilience (RRF) funds, it could be possible for Member States to temporarily use some of the liquidity from RRF disbursements to cover other budgetary outlays.”
“Such cash management operations by Member States are temporary and have no impact on the protection of EU funds,” he added. Commission officials said that any spending that was not included in the recovery plan will have to be eventually returned.
Transparency criticism
It’s not the first time that the EU’s post-Covid scheme, which is made up of a total of €360 billion in non-repayable grants and €217 billion in cheap loans, has been criticized over weak transparency and controls.
The European Court of Auditors (ECA) said on Tuesday that the findings of its Spanish counterpart confirmed the misgivings already raised about the fund.
“[ECA] has consistently underlined the need for more systematic reporting on actual costs and on the final use of funds,” the body wrote in a statement.
EU countries request funding from the Commission upon the fulfilment of specific targets and reforms. Critics say that the departure from previous EU programs, where funds were reimbursed only after invoices were submitted, makes it harder to track the money.
These concerns were raised by Michael Jäger, the president of the Taxpayers Association of Europe (TAE), a body that stands against wasteful government spending.
“We demand, first, that any misconduct be consistently prosecuted where appropriate. Second, we need full transparency. And third, any funds that were not used for their intended purpose must be repaid,” he said.