The resurrection of industrial policy has ceased to be an academic debate and has become a budgetary expression. In Europe, after decades of a liberal paradigm, the pandemic and geopolitical tensions opened the tap of public money through NextGenerationEU funds. In this great experiment, Spain responded with its Strategic Projects for Economic Recovery and Transformation (PERTE), mobilizing more than 41 billion euros within them. After several years of operation, the balance of this gigantic laboratory is not only uneven; It is, above all, instructive. European funds have acted as an expensive but indispensable school on how to design economic policy and high added value in the 21st century. Continue reading
