Historical Development of the European Structural and Investment Funds

In December 2020 the European Council approved the regulation establishing the European Union (EU) Multiannual Financial Framework for 2021-2027 and the Next Generation EU recovery facility. Both mechanisms will help provide in the coming years for financing worth €1.8 trillion to sustain the EU’s post-pandemic recovery and its long-term priorities. To set the scale of these funds and the challenge of managing them in context, this article firstly describes the European Structural and Investment Funds. It then offers a detailed analysis of the amount and composition of the resources received to date under these funds, along with their distribution by type of expenditure in the biggest EU countries, with particular emphasis on Spain. Lastly, given the regional focus of the allocation criteria, the final section of the article dissects the course, composition and distribution by type of expenditure of these funds among Spain’s different regions