Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Mark Nayler
“Spain was the second-largest beneficiary of the EU’s Next Generation funding scheme (NGEU), rolled out in 2021 to help member states recover from pandemic-era lockdowns. Its total allocation was €163 billion ($190 billion, after Italy, which received €194 billion, or about $226 billion), enabling Socialist prime minister Pedro Sánchez to unveil a record-breaking budget for 2022, boosted with the first €26 billion ($30 billion) from this historic program. Yet from the beginning, Spain’s deployment of NGEU money, access to which depends on hitting investment targets set by Brussels (most of them designed to further the EU’s green agenda), has been surrounded by controversy. The latest scandal over Madrid’s alleged misuse of these funds has highlighted one of the most contentious issues in the bloc—namely, the viability of mutual debt schemes.” (05/19/26)