Azpiazu proposes activating regional governments to channel and distribute European funds

The Minister of Finance of the Basque Government, Pedro Azpiazuhas once again denounced that European funds “do not reach the productive fabric with the flexibility and speed that would have been desirable”, and has therefore called for “once and for all” to activate regional authorities “to mobilize European funds to channel and distribute”. funds to our businesses, the third sector, technology centers and universities”.

According to the information provided by the advisor of the 24.5 billion euros in subsidies available for strategic projects -PERTEs-, The Spanish government distributed 6,350 million euros in the past three years. This represents only 26% of the total amount available and the deadline to use these funds expires in 2026.

In his opinion, the question of activating the regional PERTE answers a ‘purely practical’ question, recognizing that regional governments have the “experience of a continuous industrial policy close to the Basque productive, scientific and technological fabric”. “This is especially important in the case of small and medium-sized enterprises, which repeatedly claim that this support is not designed and intended for them,” he added.

Azpiazu appeared this Friday before the Finance Committee of the Basque Parliament to report on the situation of the European Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Funds, and on the MRR (Recovery and Resilience Mechanism). In total, the Basque Autonomous Community has received 1,807 million euros from the European Recovery Funds, of which 1,135 are managed by the Basque Government (62.8%) and 672 by the Spanish State (37.2%).