L'Hospitalet aspires to capture 740 million with European funds

In the race for European funds, city councils also want to have their say and capture the necessary resources to guarantee the reactivation of their economy and the transition towards a more digital and green productive model. In the case of L'Hospitalet de Llobregat, its mayor, Núria Marín, has announced that they will present seven projects to receive Next Generation funds. The initiatives selected by the council have a value of 740 million euros and are expected to create 15,200 jobs.

Marín has only specified one of these seven projects: Florida 6.0. With an allocation of 30 million euros, the plan will consist of the development of a "great innovation laboratory" that will serve to modernize the city, reduce the digital divide, and improve services for the people of L'Hospitalet. It will be installed on the upper floor of the Florida Market.

One of the measures of the Florida 6.0 plan will be the training of 400 young people in digital skills, with the aim of improving their access to the labor market. It will do so hand in hand with the Ministry of Industry, which will allocate 800,000 euros, and the Mobile World Capital Barcelona (MWCapital) foundation.

The mayor has stated that all these initiatives are essential for the city and that they will be carried out both with and without the support of Next Generation funds. "With European resources, we will do them quickly, but if the funds do not come, we will continue working to find resources to develop them," she stressed.

In addition to the seven projects that L'Hospitalet wants to present, the council is involved in obtaining European resources to promote a reference center in audiovisual innovation and digital content production, a leader in Southern Europe. One of the pillars of this initiative, in which the Generalitat and the city of Terrassa also participate, will be the expansion of the Parc Audiovisual de Catalunya.

The business lobby of L'Hospitalet

Marín has presented Florida 6.0 within the framework of Diàlegs per a la reconstrucció, a meeting in which experts "personally or professionally linked to the city" participated, such as the CEO of GSMA, John Hoffman; the president of Fira de Barcelona, Pau Relat; the CEO of Puig, Marc Puig; the president of Red Eléctrica Española, Beatriz Corredor; the recently appointed CEO of Agbar, Felipe Campos, or the president of the Seat works council, Matías Carnero. "We can say that today we are staging a kind of L'Hospitalet lobby," Marín remarked.