The mayor of Elche, Pablo Ruzlearned last Friday, October 3, of the denial due to lack of punctuation of the aid that the Elche City Council had requested to face five projects worth 20 million euros and for which it expected to receive around 60%. (12 million euros), which is what the EDIL (Local Integrated Development Strategy) call says, although last Tuesday, in a news conference On this issue, he reduced to 8 million euros the money that would have been received for, he explained succinctly, «some percentages in progression», which implies that no one has been given that percentage but less. Waiting for the General Directorate of European Funds clarify the reasons why it did not “achieve sufficient scores”, as also happened to Alicante, Elda, Orihuela, La Vila, Aspe, Pilar de la Horadada, Mutxamel, Calpe, Novelda, Xàbia, the Alphas or Roofthere is a relevant event that changed the possibilities in a surprising way and it was the damage that occurred on October 29, 2024 in several municipalities in the province of Valencia, with a balance of 229 fatalities and populations completely destroyed.
The funds had been announced on October 2 and were destined for the Valencian Community 139.169.091 euros because it occupies the “transition” position, halfway between the “less developed” ones, which took the main part of the pie, as was the case of Andalusia, with 735 million euros; Extremadura, with 141 million; or Castilla-La Mancha, with 142 million; and the “most developed”, which includes the Community of Madrid, with 58 million; Navarra, with 4 million; Aragon, with 13 million; Basque Country, with 15 million; and Catalonia, with 81 million. In that “transition” category and along with Valencia were Galicia (173 million), Asturias (18 million), Cantabria (6 million)La Rioja (3 million), Canary Islands (122 million), Balearic Islands (23 million) and Castilla-León (67 million).
Jayton project for the Carrús neighborhood, which was pending EDIL funds / INFORMATION
The councilor of European Funds, Claudio Guilabert, this Wednesday in an appearance where he spoke about the EDIL funds / M. Alarcón
Councilor Claudio Guilaber, responsible for European Funds, referred to this matter on Wednesday, recalling that clarifications have been requested and allegations have been presented. “We had projects that are very mature, that is, they have been granted to municipalities that did not have the level of maturity of these projects. We are talking about projects that are already in the last phase of bidding for the execution of the works,” he said with regret. He added that “we want to know why it has not been granted if one of the fundamental requirements of this call was to accredit the maturity of the projects; that is, here we no longer wanted to undertake it, as in other calls where a report is presented without even having the projects completed.” The councilor defended the work of the technicians and “the company that also provided us with assistance in this call, because it does not understand it. The City Council has not yet received that score. In the end the important thing is that we are, that is, our candidacy has passed, it has not been excluded. Now, the question is why it has not been allocated funds by the Ministry. It is the question that we have to know. Projects that met all the parameters of the call and established in the call. There is no more.”
After the tragic events of the Danaon December 30 and when the magnitude of what had happened was well known, the aid was modified, so that just over 44 million euros were removed from the distribution to prioritize “current and future needs.” reconstruction and mitigation of the damage caused by the catastrophe in the entities affected by the damage,” the document says. The curious thing, perhaps, is that this amount disappeared from the fund destined for the Valencian Community, which remained at 94.5 million euros. That is, the aspiring municipalities of the Valencian Communitywho were 42, should have been in solidarity with the tragedy instead, perhaps it would have been more fair if, given the magnitude of what happened, that amount had been deducted from the overall amount that was going to be distributed, which was 1,774 million euroswhich will now cover 242 projects 971 municipalities throughout Spain. But that was the distribution of the call, by communities, although Europe provided that fund for all of Spain.
Two months after the call of the EDIL, the amount to be distributed among the Valencian municipalities was reduced to 94 million
Technicians
The mayor, last Friday, when he reported the denial of aid and in a veiled way he accused the Government of an “arbitrary” decision did not refer to this issue but to the fact that how it had been scored by the technicians. The phrase he said, referring to the fact of using Andalusia as an example because it was going to receive 735 million, does not make much sense either because since October 2 when the It was already known that this was the amount to be distributed to the community. It is also curious that the projects have not been scored, but the municipalities, that is, not their quality, but who presented it.
Plaza de Barcelona, one of the markets to be renovated with EDIL funds / Áxel Álvarez
Financial path
“This order modifies, first of all, the order of October 2 to deduct from the financial path planned for the Valencian Community 44.5 million that would correspond to the local entities affected by the damage, in a proportional manner with the rest of potential beneficiaries of the EDIL Plans in said autonomous community,” says the document dated December 30. This was not the only aid planned, as an additional provision was added mandating the General Directorate of European Funds to reschedule the FEDER multiregional program to allocate additional resources to those provided in the previous paragraph in favor of a specific reconstruction objective and subsequently articulate a procedure for allocating resources ERDF financial path for performances of reconstruction and relaunch of infrastructure, services and public goods that have been damaged in the affected local entities. A few weeks ago the mayor already announced that another project, the tram, would also suffer delays because the Generalitat diverts resources to the dana, and They have not been the only ones affected in Elche or that they will be in the next regional budgets.
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