Pedro Sánchez has announced €4.5 billion in subsidies and nearly €50 billion in loans for SMEs under the Recovery Plan

School of Industrial Organisation, Madrid

The President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, announced on Thursday that the executive is going to allocate €4.5 billion in subsidies and nearly €50 billion in loans and financial instruments of the Recovery Plan to SMEs. This was announced during the opening of the conference 'Transforming SMEs with the Recovery Plan', held at the School of Industrial Organisation (EOI) in Madrid, which was attended by the Minister for Industry and Tourism, Jordi Hereu, as well as the Government Spokesperson and Minister for Education, Vocational Training and Sport, Pilar Alegría, the Minister for Economy, Trade and Enterprise, Carlos Cuerpo, and the Minister for Science, Innovation and Universities, Diana Morant.

To understand the magnitude of the new effort with European funds earmarked for SMEs, Pedro Sánchez explained that the ICO verde and ICO empresas lines alone, included in the announced allocation, are equivalent to multiplying the total investment in the Madrid-Barcelona AVE line by three. "Never in the history of Spain has such a large amount of resources been put into modernising our productive fabric", he pointed out. According to the president, SMEs are the "backbone" of the productive fabric, representing 99% of companies and two thirds of annual GDP, and employing more than 60% of wage earners.

Group photo of the opening of the conference held at the School of Industrial Organisation (EOI) | Pool Moncloa/Fernando Calvo

In this regard, he stated that the "extraordinary economic moment" that Spain is going through, the "locomotive of growth in the EU" that exceeds 21.2 million national insurance contributors, with more than 10 million women working, is largely explained by the contribution of SMEs, even after a decade with several "potentially devastating blows" for the economy and companies, including pandemics, war, inflationary crises and shocks in the supply chains.

One third of the Recovery Plan for SMEs: more than 500,000 beneficiaries

The President of the Government said that Spain is making progress in the transformation of its production model with more digitalisation, training and internationalisation. In this respect, he pointed out that almost one in three SMEs sells online abroad, well above the European average. The government allocates more than a third of the Recovery Plan to SMEs, which means that two out of every five euros of the plan's calls for proposals reach them directly. Moreover, more than half a million SMEs are already beneficiaries of the plan, i.e., one in five.

The President of the Government of Spain, Pedro Sánchez, with the attendees at the conference | Pool Moncloa / Jose Manuel Álvarez

The chief executive praised the "innovative spirit, territorial structuring and agility of SMEs to take on the green transition and digital transformation". In this regard, he highlighted the example of the beneficiary SMEs of the NextGenerationEU funds of the Recovery Plan taking part in the conference, from multiple sectors and from all parts of Spain. He specifically referred to the boost to rural development and the commitment to face the demographic challenge to which SMEs such as O Rincón dos Sentidos (Galicia), Abejas del Moncayo (Aragón), The Mindkind (Aragón) and Lourdes Perona (Andalusia) contribute; the contribution to the green challenge of sustainable mobility of SMEs such as Scoobic Urban Mobility (Andalusia), Veltium (Basque Country), Skylife (Andalusia) and Beeplanet Factory (Navarra), and the boost to digital transformation and cutting-edge technologies made by SMEs such as PLD Space (Valencian Community), Wimmic (Canary Islands), Pixelabs (La Rioja) and Patrones y Escondites (Catalonia).

In addition, there are SMEs leading the way in the manufacture of advanced materials, such as Meltio (Andalusia), Avanzare (La Rioja) and Polykey (Basque Country); SMEs seeking opportunities in skills development and training for the young, employed and unemployed, such as Vértice (Andalusia), and SMEs exploring new technologies applied to life sciences, such as Ledartis (Madrid), BioSmartData (Balearic Islands) and Lactapp Women Health (Catalonia). Likewise, the chief executive highlighted the value of the School of Industrial Organisation (EOI), which contributes to the training of more than 13,000 SMEs per year, thanks mainly to European funds.

New call for restraint and responsibility in the Middle East

In view of the events of recent days in the Middle East, the president reiterated his call for restraint and responsibility on the part of those involved in the region to "avoid at all costs an escalation with unforeseeable consequences for the region and for peace in the world". He condemned Iran's attacks on Israel on Tuesday, calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, a truce in Lebanon, and for international law to be respected.

"Territorial integrity, the sovereignty of states, the protection of civilians and access for humanitarian aid wherever it is needed are basic principles for peaceful coexistence between nations that right now, unfortunately, we are once again seeing undermined," defended Pedro Sánchez, who called for an end to the spiral of violence that "only brings destruction and death", with more than 1.2 million people displaced since Israel's intervention in Lebanon.

"I appeal again to the exercise of diplomacy and not war to achieve a future of peace and security in a region that has suffered so much from decades of conflict," he added.

Non official translation