The European NextGeneration funds represent a historic opportunity for the Catalan economy and to improve well-being and social progress in Catalonia. This instrument created by the European Union to promote economic recovery and job creation will allow financing all kinds of projects that are truly transformative for the economy and European citizens, with special emphasis on digitalization policies and the ecological transition. The Generalitat has already activated all the machinery to make the most of these resources and ensure that the highest possible figure reaches Catalonia.
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This is a very complex issue and it's easy to get lost among so many figures, but let's go step by step. Unlike the previous crisis, when austerity was imposed, Europe has decided this time to provide a very strong economic response to help States. Specifically, it has designed an aid plan of 750,000 million euros, a very high figure that will force the European Commission to borrow on behalf of the States by placing bonds on capital markets.
Although we often refer to NextGeneration as if it were a single fund, it is actually the sum of up to seven funds with different objectives and operating modes. The most important fund is the so-called MRR (Mechanism of Recovery and Resilience), which absorbs 89% of the total available funds, with 672,500 million. Half of this figure will be granted in the form of subsidies (59,168 million euros for Spain) and the other half as loans.
The next large block corresponds to the REACT-EU program, which includes an additional 47,500 million (12,436 million for Spain) that will finance employment programs, investments in products and services for health systems, SMEs, investments in infrastructure that provide basic services to citizens, and economic measures in the regions most affected by COVID-19.
The rest are smaller funds called the Just Transition Fund (10,000 million), Feader (7,500M), InvestEU (5,600M), HorizonEU (5,000M), and RescEU (1,900M).
To receive these resources, States must prepare a National Recovery and Resilience Plan to be submitted to Brussels before April 30, 2021.
The Government of the Generalitat has activated a triangular strategy to maximize the number of Catalan projects that will receive European funds through the CORECO, CONEXT, and Catalunya 2022 initiatives.
- The Commission for the Development of the Economic Reactivation and Social Protection Plan (CORECO) is a body created last May to articulate the public sector's response to the economic and social challenges derived from the pandemic. CORECO drafted the Economic Reactivation and Social Protection Plan, which the Government approved on July 21 and which establishes the country's reconstruction strategy for the coming years, with 20 major projects and 191 sub-projects, with a value of almost 32,000 million euros until 2032. The plan pursues three main objectives: strengthen production capacity and the capacity of the health and social care system; reduce social inequalities accentuated by the pandemic; and accelerate the transition to a more sustainable economic model.
- To apply the Economic Reactivation and Social Protection Plan and, at the same time, maximize the contracting of European resources, the Government created, on October 6, the Advisory Committee Catalunya-Next Generation EU (CONEXT CAT-EU), intended to complete CORECO's work and to identify innovative and transformative projects for the Catalan economy that can be financed by the European program. The CONEXT CAT-EU is made up of experts of recognized prestige in economic matters and linked to the academic, professional, and sectoral fields of the country.
- The Catalunya 2022 Strategy consists of a group of experts with proven experience in different fields of knowledge whose mission is to analyze the post-Covid scenarios in order to develop a country strategy that allows Catalunya to be prepared to succeed in the world that is emerging after the pandemic. The objective is for this working group to present its final report next February, which will include an analysis of the situation and different proposals for action.
These high-impact projects that deserve to be classified as Perte are those that must be proposed by the experts of CONEXT CAT-EU, who, after intense activity in recent weeks, already have the proposal they will present to the Govern practically ready, which is ultimately who will decide which projects to present to the State. In turn, the State will choose the initiatives to present to Brussels, which will ultimately decide which projects will receive the funds.
"The Generalitat aims to have the largest possible number of Catalan projects on the list of Spanish initiatives to be presented," explains Lluís Juncà, general director of Economic Promotion of the Generalitat de Catalunya, who states that "for the first time, Catalonia can plan big," since now we are not facing a problem of lack of resources, but of identifying opportunities very well. The work of this commission, which has been carried out with maximum coordination with all departments of the Generalitat, is essential in this task.
One of the Pertes that the Govern plans to present aims to create in Catalonia a chip prototyping and design industry that will be a leader in Europe in ten years, taking advantage of our great asset, the MareNostrum supercomputer. It also aims to promote a reference audiovisual innovation center in southern Europe, among other initiatives that will be announced in the coming weeks.