Spain’s Government has diverted at least €8.5 billion more in European Union funds, originally earmarked for the country’s recovery plan, to cover pensions, the minimum living income and other social spending.
The disclosures emerge from a list of “budget modification files” sent by the Spanish finance ministry to the Congress of Deputies, seen by Spanish daily El Mundo. The ministry attributes the moves to the country still operating under the prorogued 2023 budget.
The figure adds to €2.389 billion already detected by the Court of Auditors (Tribunal de Cuentas) for 2024, meaning that in two years alone the reassignment of EU funds exceeds €10 billion.
The government has not clarified another €3 billion for civil servants’ pensions in 2025 that may have been funded the same way. If confirmed, the total would top €13 billion.
The reliance on EU transfers to plug current spending has accelerated as the recovery plan has run into delays in execution. The 2025 figure is roughly four times that audited for 2024.
The technique involves opening a new current expense and, because no fresh budget has been approved, cancelling another item linked to the EU’s Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF) on the grounds that the money is not yet needed.
A flagship case was a Council of Ministers decision on July 8, 2025 to top up the social security system by €2.984 billion, citing compliance with the Toledo Pact on pensions. To finance the move, then-finance minister María Jesús Montero stripped funding lines run by the Institute for Energy Diversification and Saving (IDAE), including incentives for electric vehicle charging points, renewables and energy storage.
A second decision the same day allocated €1.328 billion to minimum pension supplements, taken from two budget items earmarked for “Strategic Projects for Industrial Transition”.
Another €1.3 billion approved last year for the Minimum Living Income was largely sourced from the same industrial transition pot, with €928 million pulled from it. Close to €100 million more was lifted from the Circular Economy strategic project and from EU funds for digital skills training in regional governments. Even a €4.25 million project for an air quality prediction system at the Barcelona Supercomputing Centre was raided.
The Court of Auditors has said the finance ministry has not adequately justified the legal basis for the operations, with several auditors describing them as irregular. The 2023 Budget Extension Law bars the movement of EU funding lines outside the Recovery and Resilience Facility, which channels more than €100 billion to Spain.
That view is held by auditors nominated by the conservative People’s Party (PP) and by Isabel Rodríguez, an auditor proposed by the ruling Socialists (PSOE). Other auditors aligned with the governing bloc have criticised the practice without describing it as outright unlawful.
The finance ministry has rejected the charge, arguing the rules “in no case prevent” credits earmarked for the recovery plan from being used to fund other state budget programmes. It said the recovery plan agreed with Brussels would still be met in full.
