The Ministry of Finance will distribute more than 600 million euros among the Autonomous Communities and the General State Administration, which will be used to develop policies to support small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

TDB keeps you informed. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram

The Treasury will distribute more than 600 million euros in support policies for SMEs

These amounts come from the return of the returns generated within the framework of the SME Spain Initiative and will be carried out during the period 2024-2028.

These funds come from the returns generated by the SME-Spain Initiative, which is a joint financial support program involving, in addition to the Spanish Government, the European Commission, the European Investment Bank (EIB) and the European Investment Fund (EIF).

The SME-Spain Initiative
The SME Initiative is a financial instrument launched in July 2013 by the European Commission and the European Investment Bank, managed entirely by the European Investment Fund. It is aimed at improving access to finance for SMEs, through the provision, by the EIF of financial guarantees to SME projects that aim to foster growth, job creation and innovation.

In December 2014, Spain joined the Initiative through the approval, by decision of the European Commission, of the IPYME Operational Program (PO IPYME), with majority participation of the Autonomous Communities and Autonomous Cities (all except Asturias, Navarra and Melilla) and a contribution from the General State Administration regionalized among the participating Autonomous Communities.

This initiative has facilitated access to financing for SMEs in our country in recent years, enabling them to develop their investment projects under favorable conditions.

During the term of this Initiative, the results obtained have been 44,420 loans granted to 37,476 SMEs, for a total amount of 3,442.8 million Euros.

3,442.8 million. The majority of the companies supported were small companies, with 39% being micro-enterprises and 39% small companies, the rest being medium-sized companies.

At the end of the program, the European Commission announced for the first time the possibility of returning to the various administrations participating in the Fund the amounts remaining in the program, as resources were released, as the projects of the SMEs supported by this financial instrument were completed.

Distribution criteria
As of February 2024, more than 400 million euros have already been reimbursed by the EIF.

This amount will be followed by future repayments during the period 2024-2028, which will possibly bring the overall repayment to an amount of approximately 612 million, once the management costs and guarantees executed have been deducted from the contribution of each administration.

The regional distribution of these funds follows the last meeting of the SME Initiative Investment Committee, which brought together representatives of the European Commission, the EIF, the EIB and the Autonomous Communities. The Ministry of Finance has informed the Autonomous Communities that the distribution will be carried out with objective criteria and according to the percentage of participation of each one of them in the Initiative.

In other words, the communities that will receive a greater return are those that in the past made a greater contribution to this financial instrument.

Thus, the 400 million initially released and the rest of the funds finally made available, up to the aforementioned 612 million euros, will be distributed on the basis of the following participation percentages:

Destination of funds
In accordance with Community regulations, the financial returns from the SME Initiative must continue to be applied in support projects for SMEs co-financed with ERDF funds from the 2014-2020 period during the coming years. The returns from the IPYME initiative will be used to finance the national envelope of these projects. In this way, support for small and medium-sized enterprises will be maintained.

This ensures that SMEs in our country will continue to be able to count on lines of assistance that will boost their growth. In addition, they will be able to continue accessing favorable financing conditions through the new financial instruments that are being implemented within the framework of the loan line included in the Addendum to the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan (PRTR), which was approved in the last quarter of 2023.