Spain and Recovery Fund
Spain will invest 4.3 billion euros of funds deriving from the Recovery Plan to support and accelerate the electric transition of the automotive sector: this is the announcement made in the past few hours by the President of the Spanish Government, Pedro Sánchez.Not surprisingly, the amount allocated will be taken from the aid package launched by Brussels, which for the city of Madrid provides for the allocation of about 70 billion euros by 2026. The measure is in fact part of a much broader national investment program that includes 13 billion for sustainable mobility.
It is important that Spain anticipates the transition underway in the European automotive sector: these are the words of the President Pedro Sánchez.
In this perspective, the plan aims to also select investments on the entire production chain, starting from the extraction of the lithium needed for the batteries to the finished electric vehicle ready to be marketed. The resources allocated to upgrade the charging infrastructure will also be important, for a total of one billion euros. According to reports from Reuters, this measure could generate private placements for an additional 15 billion, thus bringing the sector's contribution to national GDP from the current 10% to 15% by 2030.
However, the strategic project for the recovery and economic transformation, as well as having the objective of supporting the automotive sector, aims at a decisive development of companies that can therefore create the conditions for autonomously producing cars.
And if, together with Spain, Germany, France and Great Britain also allocate important sums to increase the diffusion of electric cars, the situation seems to be quite different in Italy. Not surprisingly, the Italian recovery plan will place 80 billion euros in 5 years in green projects that involve an acceleration of decarbonisation, with reductions that can certainly reach 55%, aiming for 60% of emissions by 2030.
EU recovery fund to rebuild more resilient tourism sector in Spain
Some 3.4 billion euros from the EU’s post-pandemic recovery investment scheme will finance the rehabilitation and transformation of the Spanish tourism industry.
In the sixth joint forum organized by EFE and KPMG, “The challenge of recovering tourism,” Spain’s Industry and Tourism Minister Reyes Maroto said the Spanish recovery plan’s projects for modernizing the tourism sector after the Covid-19 pandemic was the “most ambitious public intervention of this country’s history.”
The vaccine rollout is key in the recovery to make Spain a safe and easy destination for foreign visitors, she added.
The 3.4 billion euros will be invested in touristic destinations, coastline regeneration, infrastructure improvements and cementing the quality of accommodation.
The plan will focus on building a more resilient tourism industry, one less dependent on seasonal affluence, as well as a more attractive branding of Spain as a destination.
Energy efficiency is one of the axes of the project, which will take up 220 million euros to lower energy consumption of buildings and destinations.
Digitalization is another key facet in the transformation agenda, as the southern European country hopes to pioneer the concept of “smart destinations.”
Despite rising infection rates, not only in Spain but all across Europe, Maroto called for composure, arguing that 58% of Spanish residents have received at least one dose of the Covid-19 vaccine, and hospitals are far from being overwhelmed.