Publications

This work aims to evaluate the Spanish "Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan" (RTRP) from a regional perspective. Interterritorial convergence has stopped in Spain in the last fifteen years, mainly due to the concentration of productivity gains in the most advanced regions. The RTRP is an opportunity to reverse the sluggishness of public investment and decisively stimulate private investment, thanks to the volume of funds and the accompanying reforms demanded by the European Union (EU). However, the Spanish regions or "autonomous communities (ACs)" have been absent from the planning and design of many of the programs, and the reforms committed ignore the territorial organization (fi-nancing, governance, development). There are no specific strategies. The territorial scope is homoge-neous, with a decisive presence of horizontal poli-cies. On the other hand, the ACs participate in the implementation phase within the scope of their powers. With some delay, they have received nearly 40% of the resources already committed. The central government manages the remaining funds. While smaller regions have received more resources per inhabitant, the relationship between the level of regional development and the funds received is not significant from a statistical standpoint. Hence, the regional distribution of funds does not favor con-vergence and territorial cohesion. The RTRP started late and with an initially slow execution, but it has recently accelerated, especially in the case of the central government. The delay of the ACs is ex-plained, in part, by factors common to other EU regional funds (complexity, control, fragmentation of management) and, in part, by specific aspects of the RTRP. In particular, the absence of participation in the design challenges the commitment of regional administrations, and the lack of a concrete, sched-uled, and organized action program complicates the reinforcement of the administrative apparatus. Fur-thermore, the arrival of additional funds competes with the implementation of ordinary EU programs.