Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Mark Nayler
“In late 2021, Spain’s Socialist prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, unveiled the following year’s budget with great fanfare. The largest in Spanish history, it totaled almost €200 billion, €27 billion of which came from a new European financing scheme called NextGenerationEU (NGEU). Supposedly designed to help member states recover from the ruinous effects of lockdown, the NGEU’s main instrument is the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF), through which a total of €650 billion was borrowed on global markets and distributed amongst the EU’s 27 member states. Spain’s share was €163 billion — an amount finance minister María Jesús Montero claimed would be enough to ensure that the ‘recovery will reach everyone.’ Almost four years later, the Spanish economy is booming, but not due to the effective deployment of RRF funds.” (07/12/25)