The Minister of the Economy, Carlos’ bodyannounced this Tuesday that the government of Pedro Sanchez intends to direct part of the funds New generation which have not yet been used for the reconstruction of Valencia after DANA and which have the agreement of Brussels for this. Corps maintains that it is still too early to specify the amount of funds that would be reallocated for flooding, but argued that its intention was to add a new chapter dedicated specifically to Valencia to the recovery plan which will be submitted to the Commission before the end of the year.
Corps carried out a working visit to the Belgian capital to explore all European instruments available for the response to DANA. There he met the commissioners responsible for regional policy, Elisa Ferreira; budgets, Johannes Hahn; and with the Vice President for Economic Affairs, Valdis Dombrovskis.
“We will activate all European solidarity mechanisms which are within our reach, which are at our disposal”, underlined the Minister of the European Economy. European aid will be added to the starter package worth 14,400 millions of national funds that the government has already approved in the last two weeks and which, according to him, will not be the last.
In this sense, Corps once again defended that it was “very important” that the Budgets for 2025 in order to “include in a visible way what is the instrumentation of this medium-term support “We hope there will be enough support and these budgets can be released,” he said.
The first European aid that the Sánchez government will request is that of Solidarity fundspecifically intended to respond to natural disasters, but whose means are limited: 1,144 million euros per year. The Corps explained that the first step is to conduct a full assessment of all damage caused by DANA, a task that is already being worked on. The deadline for submitting the request is 12 weeks, but the Minister of the Economy hopes to “shorten it as much as possible”.
Regarding the Next Gen recovery plan, Corps explained that it is not about new money, but about “redirecting funds that are not yet used towards these priority objectives of rebuilding the affected areas”. “We hope to have this addendum modification proposal on the table before the end of the year to include a specific vector for Valencia” he said.
Minister Carlos Body, during his meeting this Friday with the Commissioner for Regional Policy, Elisa Ferreira
“Now we look at two fundamental things. First, how much money can be reallocated from the funds that have not yet been reallocated. And then make a list of these priority projects“, what should be this specific agenda for the modernization and recovery of Valencia”, said Body, who assures that the amendment will be negotiated with the regional government of Carlos Mazón, as well as with employers, unions and municipalities .
Finally, the Sánchez government presented to the Commission also redirect part of the cohesion funds awarded to our country for the reconstruction of Valencia. To this end, Corpus called on the European Parliament and governments to speed up the approval of a legal reform that would allow the advance payment of the aid in question and the use of European money without resorting to national co-financing.
Regardless, the Minister of Economy stressed that aid for the reconstruction of Valencia after DANA will not count for the excessive deficit sanction procedure of the EU, because they are considered a specific and extraordinary expense. An interpretation also shared by the European Commission.
