Sánchez promises to use the 140,000 million euros for the greater modernization of Spain since the entry into the EU

The largest deployment of public investment in the recent history of Spain is already beginning to show numbers.

The President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, has presented the main lines of the plan with which the 140,000 million of the great European recovery fund that Spain has to spend will be spent, 72,000 of them in direct injection and the rest in loans, and has guaranteed that with this money the greatest modernization of the Spanish economy will be made since the country's entry into the EU in 1986, which meant a radical transformation after 40 years of dictatorship and a historical isolationism and backwardness of the country.

The cohesion funds, which marked those years, amounted to 8,000 million.

Now 72,000 arrive.

And with them, the Government, the autonomies and the municipalities, the main spenders, intend to achieve a modernization of the economy that will take it out of the crisis and can, above all, consolidate long-term growth and change an outdated production model that has shown its enormous weakness in the coronavirus crisis, the president admitted.

• Spain stands before Brussels in tax, labor and pension reforms

• The State will pay up to 100% of the housing renovations

• The recovery plan plans to invest 20,000 million in sustainable mobility and housing rehabilitation

“This plan is the greatest opportunity for Spain since joining the EU.

Occasions like this come up a couple of times in a century, and we are not going to let it pass, ”said Sánchez, in an appearance at La Moncloa in a grandiose tone to give the importance he believes to have on the great bill of the legislature, the one that will mark his political action.

A new Marshall Plan

“In 2020 the ravages of austericide, the weakness of our welfare state, were in evidence.

We have learned from everything that the true solution is to reverse the mistakes of the past.

The pandemic will give way to a new stage in our history, as shown by the great European Marshall Plan that is already underway and we always defend.

It is the first step towards the new era of modernization and transformation ”, the president insisted.

Sánchez will present the plan in Congress tomorrow - the groups have complained that they do not have any text yet - and the vice president of the economy, Nadia Calviño, will explain it to the social agents in the afternoon.

Sánchez has not given many details - the document will be known this afternoon and it is not yet the final one that will be sent to Brussels, but the main lines will be sent - but it has advanced in 6 years Spain is going to undertake 102 reforms and 110 large investments.

"A whole country project," he insisted.

In addition to the major reforms that have been negotiated with Brussels - labor, pensions, tax, public administration, health, education, justice, the new care economy, water law - the highlight is a a huge 70,000 million euros in investments "that will have an immediate impact on employment this year 2021," he explained.

39% investments of that money will be linked to ecological transition and 29% to the great digital transformation of the country.

The main objectives are those already known: "modernize the productive fabric, increase productivity, boost the capacity to create quality jobs and fight against structural unemployment, reduce social and gender gaps, promote a green economy."

The numbers give an idea of ​​the dimension of the public investment that is coming.

€ 13.2 billion for a sustainable mobility strategy, 6,820 for a home renovation program, 4,315 to modernize the administration, 4,060 for the digitization of SMEs, 4,000 to extend 5G.

Four.

Comply with the Brussels reforms

Sánchez also boasted that some reforms requested by Brussels have already been carried out, especially climate change, education, minimum vital income or labor reforms such as teleworking.

But the most important and difficult thing is yet to be done.

The Executive has agreed internally to touch up the labor reform of the PP on very sensitive issues.

And it has already begun to negotiate it, although the employer seems reluctant for the moment.

In other sensitive issues such as pensions, things are slowing down and the initiative to extend the computational age to 35 years, which United We can flatly rejected, has been put on hold.

And the fiscal question, Sánchez pointed out that "first the recovery", and that explains why it was not done this year with the Budgets, but later the Government will recover its roadmap of a profound fiscal reform.

In addition, the president now feels legitimized by the international debate itself.

“The European Commission talks about Spain needing a tax reform.

The Government has put economic recovery first, but then we will continue with our roadmap.

With tasks that Europe is setting us, which is how we sustain these levels of well-being.

The tax reform debate is a necessary debate.

Even the dangerous red communist Biden talks about raising taxes, it is a debate all over the world ”, the president has ironized.

Sánchez, who tomorrow will receive criticism from the opposition for this plan and for not having negotiated it with them, has been optimistic at all times and convinced that this money, well used, will completely change the country's productive system and entail a transformation even higher than entry into the EU.

Now it only remains to develop it and know well the details of the 30 components - reform groups - that will be definitively sent to Brussels before April 30 after intense and very opaque negotiations between the Government and the European Commission.