European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi in Rome on June 22, 2021 – AFP
Italy and Spain will be the main beneficiaries of the grand European post-pandemic recovery plan. Will they make good use of the money? In Madrid, doubts prevail among economists, while in Rome the ‘Draghi method’ is unanimously praised.
Thanks to a collective loan from the EU, unprecedented in the bloc’s history, the two countries will receive about half of the 750 billion euros planned by Brussels for the continent’s economic recovery.
Italy will receive €191.5 billion in grants and loans and Spain €140 billion.
“We are aware that the EU is risking its future with the correct application of these funds. Italy and Spain, as the first and second beneficiaries, are key players,” Spanish government president Pedro Sánchez said on Friday.
“We all have a responsibility to European citizens who pay taxes to fund our national plan,” Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi added on Tuesday.
The European Commission recently approved the plans of the two countries, which will invest the money in infrastructure and in the ecological and digital transition.
This Wednesday, it approved France’s, in the order of 100 billion euros.
In Spain, which is waiting for the money to arrive, criticism has multiplied. “These resources are overvalued: it’s not that much money, nor will they have such an impact on the economy,” says Fernando Fernández, economist at the IE Business School.
The first shipments will arrive in July, although most of the resources expected in 2021 will be delivered by the end of the year, when the economic recovery will be underway, believes the economist.
– “Simplistic optimism” –
In addition, “the plan sometimes lacks a certain simplistic optimism, which seems to take it for granted that it is enough to have the firm intention of being very green and very digital for all our problems to be magically solved”, wrote Ángel de la Fuente, director of the Fedea analysis center, to the newspaper El País.
The deep problems of the Spanish economy are structural: precarious employment, high youth unemployment, precarious education and a pension system that is experiencing difficulties due to an aging population.
Pedro Sánchez often repeats that his project includes 100 structural reforms, but these, while they are enough for the European Commission, will not be enough “to really bring about competitive change in Spain”, points out Toni Roldán, director of the economic policy research center EsadeEcPol .
For Fernando Fernández, “investments are summed up in the renovation of houses, electric cars and 5G”.
“It’s great, but it only creates jobs in the short term, not the long term,” he adds.
Many economists fear that these funds will mainly benefit large companies, rather than small and medium-sized companies, undoubtedly the majority in Spain.
Critics also point to the lack of political consensus around the plan, devised by the socialist Sánchez and his economy minister, Nadia Calviño, with little consultation with other parties.
In Italy, however, the perception is very different. Mario Draghi, who is attributed a key role in the stability of the eurozone in the face of the debt crisis a decade ago, was brought to power to implement the recovery plan.
A plan that precisely catalyzed all political tensions in the country, and even brought down Giuseppe Conte’s previous government in January.
“Draghi’s strong political commitment and leadership, plus generous EU loans and donations, could give Italy a better chance of implementing his plan,” said former Italian Treasury Chief Economist Lorenzo Codogno.
Draghi appointed about thirty commissioners with special powers to resume 57 infrastructure projects suspended in the intricacies of the Italian bureaucracy and adopted a series of decrees to simplify and speed up procedures.
See too
+ Ana Maria Braga’s marriage comes to an end after her husband mistreats employees, says columnist
+ Learn about the effectiveness of each vaccine against Covid-19
+ See photos of Karoline Lima, Neymar’s new affair
+ Lázaro Barbosa manages to flee the police again after shooting
+ Gracyanne Barbosa dance pole dance with new look
+ US agency warns: never wash raw chicken meat
+ After suing daughter-in-law, Medina’s mother accuses her of having destroyed her house; see photos
+ Yasmin Brunet breaks the silence
+ Easy-to-make chocolate fondue with fruit
+ Shark is captured in MA with the remains of youngsters missing in the stomach
!function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s)
{if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function(){n.callMethod?
n.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)};
if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version=’2.0′;
n.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0;
t.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0];
s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window, document,’script’,
‘https://ift.tt/2EUDMIP);
fbq(‘init’, ‘2641197072803735’);
fbq(‘track’, ‘PageView’);
source https://pledgetimes.com/will-european-economic-recovery-megaplan-work-skeptical-spain-optimistic-italy-istoe-money/
Disqus comments