Recently, the Council of Ministers approved the financial aid for the Strategic Project for the Recovery and Economic Transformation of the Circular Economy, known as PERTE. It will consist of 492 mi-llion euros in aid and a mobilization of 1.2 billion euros from 2022 to 2026. Its objective is to extend the useful life cycle of goods and products in order to reduce the ecological footprint.

The Circular Economy involves a paradigm shift in production and consumption in which materials and resources are kept in the economy for as long as possible, waste generated is reduced to a mini-mum and those that are unavoidable are valorized by recovering their components to reintroduce them into the production cycle.

With this aid, the aim is to meet the 2030 objectives, where Spain will be positioned as an international benchmark in waste management, recycling and reuse.

In addition, eco-design and business digitalization will also be promoted to improve competitiveness.

Thus, this plan has three fundamental points:

• Promotion of eco-design (to make objects more durable and repairable).
• Reuse, recycling and incorporation of recovered raw materials to improve re-waste management.
• Promotion of digitalization to improve competitiveness and industrial innovation.

PERTE includes 18 instruments distributed in two lines of action

1. Key sectors (will receive 300 million): to boost the implementation of circular schemes in our country, particularly in three specific industries that address serious sustainability challenges: textile-fashion, plastics and renewable energies.
2. Transversal actions (192 million): will be distributed in four categories: reduction of the consum-ption of virgin raw materials; eco-design; waste management and digitalization. The measures con-templated in the plan fall mainly under component 12 of the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan (PRTR). However, they go beyond and permeate other components of the plan, generating sy-nergies with other PERTEs in areas such as construction; agriculture, livestock and fisheries; water management; energy and renewables; tourism or retraining, vocational training and green employ-ment.

The circular economy will be one of the keys to reactivation in Spain, favoring new employment ni-ches and providing resilience by alleviating the dependence of our economy on the outside world at a time of uncertainty in the availability of raw materials and other inputs.