The Government presents its latest request for payment of European funds with reductions in ambition in projects where the opposite could be expected due to high social sensitivity. An example is that the Recovery Plan program for social housing has been cut by 21%. It coincides with the fact that it is one of the items used in successive budget extensions to pay pensions and other expenses of the Ministry of Social Security, according to the documents to which EL MUNDO has had access.
The European Commission accepts a reduction in the scope of the so-called Component 2 in the milestone called "construction of housing for social rent in energy efficient buildings." The commitment reached in 2021 with the EU was to allocate one billion from the Recovery and Resilience Mechanism to build 20,000 homes of this type. Not only was a social demand going to be met, but they were going to be particularly modern in response to the energy efficiency objectives sought by Brussels for the execution of these funds.
However, in the ninth and last modification agreed last August with the European Commission, the Executive only sees it feasible to reach a maximum of 15,718. Far from trying to reallocate more European funds from other items for more homes - something that was negotiable with Brussels - what it has done is assume 4,300 fewer homes than committed.
More shocking is that this project corresponds to budget item 25.50.26BB.754 which, as this newspaper has been able to verify, was written off for a value of 500 million in both 2024 and 2025 so that the Ministry of Social Security could have margin - in the absence of Budgets - to pay pensions and other social expenses.
The Court of Auditors already detected this problem last May when evaluating the general State account for 2024 and the Ministry of Finance then led by María Jesús Montero replied that this budget movement did not harm the final use of the funds. That is, items were used punctually, but without compromising the final objective in 2026 of full compliance with the Recovery Plan. The European Commission then also endorsed the use of "liquidity" from the Recovery Mechanism in Spain to pay pensions by not jeopardizing the final fulfillment of the plan. However, the cut is 21% in this case.
In any case, the Government disassociates the use of this project in budget extensions for pensions and gives inflation as the reason for the construction of fewer homes. «Spain has explained that a measure has become partially unviable due to inflation. This is measure C2.I2 (Aid program for the construction of housing for social rental in energy efficient buildings). For this reason, Spain has requested that this measure be modified," says the European Commission.
The Ministry of Economy assured this Wednesday that "16,000" have finally been built, but that it is still trying to finally reach 23,000. In the last modification agreed in writing with the EU, it remains at the 15,718 mentioned.
This Wednesday, the Government sent its seventh and last request for payment of the European funds corresponding to the Recovery Plan within the deadline. According to an official statement from the Ministry of Economy, it requests a final disbursement in the amount of 25,861 million euros to complete a global collection of 101,300 million. It thus confirms the renunciation of 38% of the 163,000 million euros reserved for Spain by Brussels at the beginning of the Plan. The first vice president, Carlos Body, has justified the waiver of 61.7 billion in the loan chapter by considering that Spain can finance itself under conditions similar to those of the EU. However, the cost of national financing is now much higher than what it would have been able to get initially if it had requested that money from the EU from the beginning of the programme.
The deputy secretaries of Economy and Finance of the PP, Alberto Nadal and Juan Bravo, respectively, put the case of social housing as an example of "mismanagement of European funds." They also highlight a strong reduction in another commitment, that of the ICO line for social housing that was going to allocate 4,000 million euros and remains at 568, almost 86% less, but in this case, the Official Credit Institute maintains that it can continue operating this project with the new España Crece fund also endowed with European money.
The European Commission must evaluate until December whether Spain deserves the final payment that the Government has just requested based on compliance with the latest milestones and objectives, estimated at 148. The PP estimates that close to 2.5 billion subsidies will be lost due to non-compliance.
