For citizens without the citizens? Policy change and Europeanization of anticorruption and integrity measures in the Next Generation funds’ management in Spain

The European Union is making a formidable financial effort through the Next Generation European Union (NGEU) funds to help the member states hardest hit by the crisis associated with the COVID-19 pandemic not only to recover from it but also to implement the necessary reforms to strengthen their resilience to face similar crises in the future. According to European regulations, the management of these funds is strongly conditioned to ensure not only their effective and efficient use but also to avoid any risk of corruption, fraud, and conflict of interest; that is why all organizations (public and private) that have any responsibility for using this money are obliged to develop solid control schemes to minimize such risks. This fact represents a unique opportunity for experimentation in ethics regulation in Spanish public organizations. All of this is part of global socialization processes that affect the European Union itself, and that is transferred to Spain. These processes do not imply only mimetic isomorphisms but rather complex trade-offs in which the interests of national actors also count. This paper will analyze the general lines of hard and soft regulation in this area and some of the most effective integrity plans that various Spanish government ministries have implemented. The paper will describe the main novelties they bring with them and evaluate their positive aspects, but also those that generate more doubts about their suitability to manage these funds with the highest integrity.